Marketing Vanguard at Cannes: AI Is Becoming the Daily Job ft. Mark Kirkham of PepsiCo

The day I stop learning is the day I stop being a marketer. But the day I stop sharing and collaborating across peers in our industry is the day that the industry stops learning. Hi everyone and welcome to Marketing Vanguard podcast live from can. I'm Jenny Rooney with Ade and we are doing a special edition of the podcast as a vidcast here along the quaset. Um, and I am thrilled today to be joined none other than Mark Kirkham, the CMO of PepsiCo, uh, Beverages North America. Mark, welcome. >> Hey, thanks Jenny. Great to be here. Love, love being here closing out can and actually in this wonderful heat that we're enjoying all week long. >> I mean, it's been brutal. >> It has, >> especially brutal. I think it's really always hot, but it's incredibly intense this year. But intense is my word for Cam this year in all all the ways. that I mean it it is intense but in a good way like talk about that like intense meaning you you try to pack in so much the conversation the the meeting up with old friends the the work itself the heat all of it's a bit intense but it's in a good way I think sometimes in in our world in our day-to-day lives like the intensity of work and the grind is one thing but here I think we if if you can take the time to enjoy it then it's actually good intensity >> so I've heard that actually in and tell me if you've heard otherwise the the actual numbers at can are down like there are fewer people here >> obviously a consequence of some cons consolidation in the industry >> um perhaps there's therefore fewer elements of work submitted in the main um are we seeing with that sort of compression are we seeing sort of a rise in quality or are you not seeing that um >> I I would like to think so because for me And I I'll give our our own like we in if I'm honest um a lot of companies like ours we would just and and sometimes you didn't even know what people were submitting. It was kind of the agencies that did it teams around the world. I think we're being much more intentional about what we submit and and who we send and things like that. So I I think there's while there may be compression in the numbers I do believe it's quality over quantity and and I think that's a good thing for the industry. I think it's a good thing for Can Lion. But I think more importantly what it does result in is more quality of work, more quality of conversation and more quality of the networking that we we get to do here every year. >> Yeah. And I listen we've all belabored the AI thing. Um what I have heard though is that in for me personally where last year there was a lot of reference to it and perhaps a little bit of con concern about it but there were no hard examples and there was no real world case study to really turn to. I'm hearing this year actual examples of implementation. Talk about that. >> Yeah. No, I I think it's it's it's good that kind of it's it the buzz is gone and now it's a so what versus just talking about AI as a thing. And you and I were here, you know, NFTTS years ago is that kind of moment. Uh but but I I think what's interesting and it's like any other technology evolution in marketing you know ecom you know uh mobile you know the internet early days like at some point it just becomes part of your day job right and so I think we're in that transition period and what I yes everyone's talking about AI but they're actually talking about real things like what are you doing they're talking about discoverability they're not talking about who made the an ad from AI but more importantly how is AI driving growth how is AI actually driving efficiency How is AI driving greater insight? Those are use cases I think that all of us can learn from. And that is going to become part of our daily job and not part of like a buzz trend or things like that. >> How many years have you been coming to can? >> Um I think it's about 13 or 14. I mean you got to take out the co years but um you know probably since about 2012 is probably when I started coming. And it's you know it's funny. It's one of those things where he's like oh am I going to go next year? and you come back and you you do get refreshed. I think the the challenge is carrying the momentum from can every day into the work into the creativity into the relationships not just seeing people once a year and and finding ways to kind of connect the dots ongoing. Um that's I think that's the hard part uh about can but but yeah it's become in somewhat a pilgrimage but in many ways uh an important ritual you know for creativity and as as marketers just getting ourselves back to what we actually love doing which is creating great work and engaging with consumers and engaging with the industry. >> So Kevin George used to be the global CMO of Beam Sunri back in the day and I'm going back maybe 10 years even. Um he used to say to me it's he's he back then he said it it made sense for him to go every other year because there wasn't enough real change happening in the industry year to year to warrant a trip back every consecutive year. Now that we're 10 years later in 2026 do you think the speed of change has accelerated such that if you're not here every year you're going to miss a lot? >> I mean the yes yes and yes. I think the speed of change is one that we need to have constant conversation and not even sometimes wait for can whether it's you know through the work we do together uh with ade and marketing vanguard or any other form that allows us to have real conversation about what's happening in an industry it is going to continue to change fast I mean we we were kind of living in a 5 to 10 year cycle of disruption in the past now we're probably in a 5 to 10 month you know disruption cycle so I do think it's important for us to continue to stay very close to what's evolving and changing our industry. Um, both from a brand standpoint, but from an ecosystem standpoint. And so, yeah, maybe every other year was okay 10 years ago. It probably is not. And I think the more we can connect with our our peers, with our partners, with our agencies on a more regular basis, I think the better we are all together. >> Yeah. I mean and the reality is that you're it's funny because you come and you kind of want to learn from the environment and what I've always said with Vanguard and the definition of Vanguard is it's a group of group of people who through their actions and ideas and decisions are changing trajectory changing the course of things like you all are the ones who are actually creating the change you're not just responding to it and yet you come you know as somebody as accomplished as you and all the CMOs that I've been able to engage with this week you know there there is a humility that that persists around like I want to come here I just had Laura Balash on and she said you know come as a learner come with curiosity and yet you're also but everybody also is looking to you and what you are doing is setting the agenda for the future and how everybody who's a practitioner in this industry needs to think about moving forward. Yeah, but I I agree 100%. But I think what's interesting is that we have to both learn individually and share collectively. And if you think about what this opportunity and coming to can is about, it's about sharing collectively. Um, and you you individually will take take away whatever it is that's most interesting to you. The important part is that we don't get enough opportunities sometime and I think Vanguard is a great way for us to do it is to share collectively to talk about topics to have those open honest conversations to actually move the industry forward through consensus or to actually debate when we disagree and create the healthy tension in our industry. So I I do think as a marketer and I've said this many times, the day I stop learning is the day I stop being a marketer. But the day I stop sharing and collaborating across peers in our industry is the day that the industry stops learning. >> Yeah. No, there has to be that. And I think there also has to be an expansion of the circles because um I'm meeting new brands every day. You're meeting new brands. you're acquiring some of those brands by the way sometimes that are that are >> disruptive that are category busting but like behind them are CMOs whose thinking is different it's not any better or worse it's just different and I think the more we can bring different perspectives into a room and different people into conversation so that to your point about debate like it isn't and again it's not a value judgement it's not about right or wrong it's just about alternatives and different ways of seeing things and different kinds of perspective. That's where I think we're also going to benefit. >> I 100% agree. Um and in fact to use the example of Poppy and we've talked about it. It was this time last year was right after right after the acquisition and um this year uh Sophia on our team who's um I think employee number four at Poppy was here. And it's great because someone like her helps my team be smarter and better and learn from a much more organic social kind of approach to building a brand, which all of us do, but we didn't. We weren't born doing it. And I think I think we have to bring those different experiences and those different opinions and those different business models because it shapes your culture in a new and I would say a very encouraging way. Um, and so to bring her here this year and see her engage with like the traditional marketers and those of us who kind of came up the traditional way, it really opened your eyes to like how marketing is evolving and how much great talent we have in our system. >> Any work you submitted this year? >> Yeah, we submitted a bunch of work. I think overall PepsiCo is somewhere like 13 or 15 overall awards. Uh, the choice actually got two awards, a silver and a bronze. Congratulations social. So, which was great and I was actually really happy. It it was acknowledged within social and culture because as great as a a TV ad because you know ran on the Super Bowl it was what what was so powerful is how it grew organically in social. I mean our views of the three core assets is twice that of the viewership of the social of the Super Bowl. You look at what we did with Instagram. You look at what we did with uh in real life experiences and content capture. What we did with podcast um so one of them was multiplatform. We won bronze and we won silver and challenger brand. And what's fun about that is we're getting knowledge for the work that really worked hard for an idea that fundamentally is about, you know, everyday people trying something new and realizing it. And so, uh, really excited for that. Really excited for our our snacks and food team who won across variety of different campaigns. Uh, we had a lot of short lists as well. And, um, it it's always nice to go home with some hardware, but it's it's more important to just be recognized for what you intended to do. Yeah. And what what you learn is, you know, you learn, hey, you you actually thought about it the right way in terms of when you built the idea. You know, you built the idea to do a certain thing and it worked and then the industry recognizes you. That that's a lot. And big shout out to Gustavo Raina and the entire team who built this amazing program called The Choice. Uh and the stories that we told and we're sitting here talking about today, you know, months later and and hopefully, you know, years to come. biggest hack for a CMO trying to navigate through can >> air conditioning. Uh I'm going to go there because um it's funny I sometimes I've even just take a car just to cool off even though I know I can walk there much quicker uh navigating can I think the other one is we all we'll all admit it we all double triple book. Um but do it with intention you know know when you're not going to be able to do things when you are and being very uh you know intentional about where you go and where you don't go. Uh, and then I think another one would be um prioritize those that you can't meet in New York City. At least for me, there there are so many times and you and I see each other a lot, but there are so many times people like from the US will come here and they just meet here. And I think the biggest opportunity can is to meet with so many people. And I've been lucky to spend a lot of my career outside the US, but to meet the people you don't see all the time. So I think that's that's another hack that's really important. >> It really really really is. Last couple questions. Who's next? Who's somebody I should have on the podcast? This can be somebody you admire from afar or you've ne uh because you've never met them or it's somebody you know really really well and they're a CMO doing extraordinary work. >> Greg Gdati at uh Ferrero. >> I have not had him on. >> No, Greg is Greg is great. He's um I actually used to work for him years ago when we were in Gillette PNG days. Obviously he's got Nerds and Trolley and and all of those great brands. We did a partnership. Um but Greg is an incredible marketer. He's so passionate about what he does and uh yeah, he's a good human being. So, I would I would I would say I would I would pass the torch to Greg for your next one. >> I appreciate you being here. Thank you for being such a supporter and proponent um and advisor to Marketing Vanguard. It's really really important to us. We can't do this without you and the rest of the community. Um we're building it for you. So, um thank you so much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. It means a lot to me. Awesome. Appreciate it. Safe travels. All right. You too. >> Thanks. Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the AdWeek Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. [music] You can listen and subscribe to all of AdWeek's podcast by visiting adweek.com/mpodcast. Stay updated on all things ADWeek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at adweekpodcast. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email at podcastweek.com. Thanks for listening.