"One day, I want to be there on the stage" - Lessons From AB InBev, Marketer Of The Year.

AB InBev has been named?Cannes Lions Creative?Marketer of the Year two years in a row and won 49 Lions across 10 brands from seven countries at the 2022 Cannes Lions Festival.

Last year at the Cannes Festival of Creativity, Michel Doukeris, CEO of AB InBev and Marcel Marcondes, Global CMO, sat down with Snap CCO Colleen DeCourcy to explore how AB InBev went from being a company that bought brands to a company that builds brands and wins Marketer of the Year in just five years.

Here are 10 lessons from their conversation on how it took passion, purpose and smart business to all come together.

1. Don't be afraid to go back to basics

Michel Doukeris spoke about using the power of creativity to transform the company to re-imagine "what a beer company can be and what we can do".

"At the core...you need creativity, you need innovation and most of all you need winning brands because this is your end point of contact with consumers."

2. Appreciate your team and let them know.

He spoke often of the people in AB InBev doing the work.

"It's not the work of one person...it's the work of an incredible team. I'm just speaking on behalf of them."

3. Don't give up on your dreams

Marcel Marcones revealed how he used to come to Cannes Festival in his vacation, paying for himself and renting a room one hour's walk away from the Palais so that he could come to be inspired.

"I was the first one to get here and the last one to leave...taking all the posters, putting them in my bag to take home, I used to think to myself, "One day, I want to be there on the stage"."

4. Be ambitious and dream big.

Marcel spoke of planning to grow by design and of driving the business with creativity to come up with creative solutions for our problems.

"We said we should have the ambition to get to the top, let's work hard to get there."

5. Share your passion and get buy-in from the top

Michel knew he wanted his team to share in the passion and inspiration that he got coming to Cannes. But how to ask to bring fifty people?! (Yes! Fifty!). By sharing his own experience and the potential for creating inspiration for the marketing team he convinced Michel to reply "Go for it!".

"We're here to lead - we need to have a big ambition."

6. As a CEO, enable your people.

Michel Doukeris truly is a CEO who sees all departments and the integral way in which they all connect. Coming to Cannes to see the power of creativity for himself he spoke of his job to enable and encourage people and to give them the opportunities to support their ideas and be the best versions of themselves.

"I say...whenever you have a crazy idea and it's Sunday night just after midnight, just call me! Don't keep the idea for yourself! All the normal ideas you would discuss in the meetings, but that crazy idea, you need to put it out very quickly!"

7. To win Lions, give people the freedom to be creative.

It's a cliché now to be told you need to make mistakes to learn, but Michel spoke of how you will never win if people are over-managed and not given the courage and freedom to be creative. Of course, there is, he says, lots of planning, and working in the background, but when the idea is powerful enough you've got to get them off the ground.

"You work the best that you can on the insights, but at the end of the day, creativity wins each and every day."

8. Creatives work hand-in-hand with business.

Marcel emphasised the need to make sure the focus of the conversation is always to come up with creative solutions for business and consumer problems to be able to drive growth.

"At the end of the day, it's a business...we need to come up with creative solutions for what people are going through and what the business is going through."

9. Be humble - You only know it today

In this fast-changing world, there's no such thing as "I know how to do it". Recognising this, and the need to stay ambitious to get the same thing done tomorrow but in a different way is key.

"We learnt a lot during Covid....when you have no other way but to come up with creative solutions because you are surrounded by problems."

10. Give people purpose.

A sense of purpose brings people together. Michel highlighted that one out of every one hundred jobs comes from the beer industry. The purpose of growth for the people who rely on you is strong and their new slogan, 'To a Future With More Cheers' carries multiple flexible meanings for traction into growth, sustainability, diversity and more.

"We exist to dream big so that we can create a future."