At the legendary Carlton Hotel in Cannes, we sat down with Christian Johansen, President, McCann Worldgroup Europe & UK, and Harjot Singh, Global Chief Strategy Officer, McCann and McCann Worldgroup, to talk about creativity, technology – and imagination.
At McCann you have a mission to build enduring brand platforms. With audiences fragmented across so many digital channels, what are the best ways of ensuring the visibility of brands?
Christian Johansen: You’re right: fragmentation’s been around for decades, but it’s exploded, for sure. Personally I think there’s an enduring strategic way of building brands, and a multifaceted, more agile way of doing it.
At McCann we always start with “Truth Well Told”. Truth is a foundational principle of who we are. It drives everything we do. We unlock human truths and turn those truths into compelling stories. Then we drive radical creativity through the system into the marketplace. This generates impact, brand visibility and also business growth.
That’s the timeless core principle. But there’s also a more timely aspect to this, which is around relevance. I have a creative but also a media background – I worked in media brands for about five, six years. Audience first thinking was always a key aspect of that – and it’s fundamental to how we address audiences at McCann.
It’s about showing up in surprising places, always aligned with the passion points of the audience. As an example, the fastest growing part of McCann at the moment is our social and influencer capability. What that business does extremely well is tailor content for specific platforms, to make sure we appear in the most relevant way. What we do on TikTok would be very different to how we activate content for audiences on Instagram, for instance.
We’re also implicated in the creator economy that’s so vital to any kind of influence or social strategy today. We forge relationships that enable us to exist in those communities in the most relevant and, I think, authentic ways. All of which is fuelled by data and accelerated by AI.
When you won the Beko, Whirlpool and Hotpoint accounts (basically, you won my kitchen) it was described as “an AI-powered brand transformation”. Can you describe what that means?
CJ: First I’d like to say that they are phenomenally progressive. In the briefing, we found out very quickly that our ambitions to help them transform their business were completely matched by their own aspirations. So immediately there was a really great partnership, with both sides pushing each other forward.
And that human quality was fundamental to what became quite a technological story, which is about placing AI at the heart of their value chain. From the beginning to the end of the communications journey, we injected the phenomenal capabilities of AI, from generating deeper audience insights, to better data sets, to bolder creative work.
And then there’s obviously the production aspect, which is about systematising that and delivering all those assets with speed and quality.
Two years ago when I came to Cannes, AI was a source of anxiety. But now it’s seen as a source of progress.
CJ: I think it’s an enhancer of capability, rather than something that’s going to replace what a human can do. The folks at Beko really understand that.
Talking of AI, how should agencies meet the challenge of digital giants like Meta and Google offering AI tools that may enable marketers to take creativity into their own hands?
CJ: What’s important for us in this environment is taking what differentiates us and doubling down on it. What we do is we unlock human truths through radical creativity. These are the things that clients will keep coming to us for. But we can bring in AI as a strategic and creative enabler. We’re making sure that we seamlessly and fully integrate AI across our framework, and training our teams so they can deploy it on behalf of clients. We’re also plugging AI into the fabulous strategic capability that Harjot is building across McCann.
Turning to you Harjot, you have the fantastic Truth Central research unit. What “truth” about our current chaotic world have you come across recently that surprised or intrigued you?
Harjot Singh: I think the most urgent truth right now is that our industry is becoming ever more distracted. Take this whole conversation about AI: we’re talking about something that is 50 years old, which began when Alan Turing one day decided to ask ‘Can a machine think like a person?’ But scientifically, we’ve still not been able to attach any real KPIs to determine what the capacity and extent of a human being’s mind is. So the idea of AI being some kind of holy grail is something we need to be a little less distracted by.
We need to focus on the business we’re in, which is the business of building brands that are impossible to ignore. And impossible to forget. The only way you can do that is if you rely on imagination more than automation. Those brands are not built by code. You need taste, you need vision and you need culture.
AI is not the enemy – sameness is the enemy. AI can replicate, it can duplicate at scale. But unforgettable brands are different. We have to acknowledge AI for what it is, and not throw shade at it, because it’s a very powerful thing. But as powerful as it is, it’s not poetic. It can’t deal with the abstract nature of human emotion. A machine can generate, but a human being can imagine.
If I look at a couple of your Cannes winners – for L’Oréal Paris and Mastercard – they’re very much about brands taking a stance. Why is it important for brands to try to make a difference?
HS: I think it’s more about defining what you believe in, because that’s what gives you the ability to reach higher and aim further. It doesn’t have to be an altruistic pursuit. It has to be a credible pursuit. So for Mastercard, for example, the widest emotional territory they can credibly operate in is the space of financial inclusion. For L’Oréal it’s all about acknowledging that you are not here to negotiate your world: you’re here to claim it; you’re here to assert it.
As we keep saying, at McCann we lead with the truth. Because if what you’re saying is true, it will move people. You move the market by moving people. And you’re not going to move people by just telling them why functional superiority should command a price premium.
Brands also have a responsibility. They have so much financial clout. They have power. They have reach. They have influence. They create culture. But with great power comes great responsibility. So I think all brands should take a deeper, closer, more honest look at themselves and say – what can we do with this power?
A few years back we talked about how strategy deserved a larger presence at Cannes. The situation has evolved since then…
HS: It’s amazing, right? Last year I was president of the Creative Effectiveness jury. We have an Impact track, and there’s a much more balanced conversation about the fact that creativity and effectiveness mutually reinforce each other. Creativity without impact is just artistic expression – which is fine, too, but this is not an art show. It’s a creative show. I believe creativity at its heart has to have a utilitarian end goal. It has to solve something.
The minute you think about impact as something that’s essential to the very definition of creativity, it has to be front and centre – and today it is.
What are you both excited about for McCann and the industry over the coming months?
CJ: For me, it’s what brought me into this business initially, and that was the work. Over the years, what I’ve found is that I just have an unwavering love for the output. At various times in my career I’ve beeen quite removed from that output, and everything we do to create it. So for me, I’m really excited about being close to the work again.
HS: When you go to competitive pitches, agencies will explain how they build brands, and sometimes the work they use to legitimise their approach comes from quite a long time ago. The receipts are getting old. So I’m motivated by creating new receipts. We have a legacy, but I want to add to it. What are the next two, three big things that we can make that will get talked about? I want to help expand the inventory of great work for our clients.
Last question: what is the ONE THING clients are asking for right now?
CJ: From the conversations I’m having, and especially now with AI being top of mind, I’d say it’s revenue growth. How do the people and structures I have unleash that? That’s very much on our minds right now.
HS: Clients want us to imbue them with the confidence and certainty that leads to bolder creative decisions. No client ever wants to make bad work. They never say, ‘Let’s just do what everyone else has done.’ They all want to create something that will become a reference. And our job is to empower them to do that.
