In All the AI Buzz at Cannes, I Was Thinking About Earned Growth

This post is written by Maureen Burns, my co-author on?Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, a Bain colleague and expert in customer loyalty, NPS, and the impact of Generative AI on customer experience.

Since returning from Cannes Lions, I’ve had time to reflect on what I saw there and distill a few critical trends.

Generative AI + changing media consumption

From the beaches “sponsored” by Big Tech to the halls of the Palais, everyone seemed to be talking about two powerful forces reshaping marketing. The first is artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI. The second is the continuing change in the ways we consume media, specifically the power of social media.

Discussions about the impact of AI raised more questions than answers at Cannes. In an AI world where it is possible to create bespoke “virtual influencers” for every customer, what is the future for human influencers? For SEO? Will the large language models ultimately incorporate paid search? What role will AI assistants play?

Many of the presentations in the Palais were traditional campaigns for traditional channels, but more attention went to the TikTok and sports influencers headlining many of the beaches. Clearly the media elite has gotten the message that you can’t reach Gen Y and Z (and, increasingly, X) the same old way. The power of social media and influencers seems to have quieted old laments about the cost—and risk—of relying on paid creators.

Add consumers amplifying (or diminishing) brands on social medial, the potential of AI-generated content on those platforms, and even of AI-generated influencers, and marketers are left with an uncomfortable realization: They are losing control over their brand narrative.

The power of Earned Growth

Amid all of that uncertainty, I kept finding myself reminded of the enduring importance of Earned Growth (net revenue retention plus revenue from referrals and recommendations) particularly through customer word of mouth and referral marketing. Social media has ensured that consumers have more power than ever, broadcasting good or bad experiences. Now large language models are beginning to draw on content like Reddit reviews to make their recommendations, further empowering the customer reviewer.

What companies can still control is their investment in products and experiences that delight customers and marketing those products and experiences in authentic ways that resonate with their target customers. Happy customers talk, and their genuine endorsements carry weight that AI simply can’t match.

Two brands that were highly visible at Cannes exemplify the power of Earned Growth: Liquid Death and e.l.f. Beauty.

Liquid Death, the irreverent water brand, has built its success through unconventional marketing, including edgy and humorous packaging and campaigns that spark conversation and turn customers into passionate advocates. Its taglines “Murder your Thirst” and “Death to Plastics” resonated early with metal and hard-core concert goers looking for a cool-looking non-alcoholic drink. Leveraging a combination of traditional and social-media powered “word of mouth,” Liquid Death has reached a billion-dollar valuation.

I love that Liquid Death starts all its marketing from a foundation of customer loyalty: knowing your target and what is going to resonate. As it expanded its target audience to include younger women and girls, the company partnered with e.l.f., which is an iconic brand among tween girls, creating a humorous TikTok campaign for their collaboration on Corpse Paint makeup.

In thirty seconds the videos hit on so much that has meaning to today’s consumers, including TikTok’s “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) videos, Gen Z anxiety, and even a nod to the Millennial Moms who are most likely paying for all that expensive water. If you haven’t seen them already, the videos are worth checking out. The series has millions of impressions. How is that for “word of mouth?”

I’m fascinated by beauty, a category that has pulled in double digit growth over the past five years in part by figuring out marketing in the social media age. At a Cannes panel on beauty one of the speakers said something that really struck me. Gen Z—today’s teens and young adults—is all about social media influencers, she said, while Gen Alpha—those aged 14 and under—is all about recommendations from friends (and some family too).

Monetizing loyalty

Also on display at Cannes: Kinective Media by United Airlines, the first airline to offer partners the opportunity to serve up personalized content on its app and inflight entertainment screens powered by United’s traveler and loyalty program data. At a time when many airlines have been removing screens from planes, United is betting customers will enjoy access to entertainment enabled by relevant paid content, and that marketers will enjoy a higher ROI than traditional channels.

This is another way to monetize customer loyalty. The more loyal your customers, the more data you have and the more relevant the content will be. It will be the job of marketers to put customers first and ensure that they are serving valuable and relevant content, not just more spam.

The rise of Reddit

Reddit had a noticeably more visible presence at Cannes this year too. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights how users are turning to Reddit to fill a void leading search engines can’t address: unbiased user-driven product recommendations and advice.

Google has recognized this shift, expanding their partnership to pull Reddit’s customer sentiment data into its large language models. Reddit also has an agreement with OpenAI to pull content into ChatGPT.

Imagine when a brand can mine that rich data along with their own NPS for insight into the reasons customers come to and refer them—and can use that insight in the way Elon Musk suggested in his Cannes interview that advertising that’s done well is not advertising but content. If you are giving your customers what they want when they want it, you’ve moved from hawking a product to meeting a need.