Best of LinkedIn: Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2026

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about Khan Lyon International Festival of Creativity.

00:00:09: Frennes is a B to B market research company that supports enterprise marketing teams in unlocking the full potential of their customer data with the help of AI.

00:00:18: you can find more info.

00:00:21: So, welcome to today's deep dive everyone.

00:00:23: We are really thrilled to have you with us!

00:00:25: Yeah thanks for joining uh... Today our mission is basically unpack the absolute top trends from The Con Lion International Festival of Creativity twenty-twenty six and we're specifically focusing on all the insights that were buzzing across linkedin curated directly For You the BtoB marketing professionals right?

00:00:42: And I think we need a quick tone.

00:00:44: check Right out of the gate because if hear the word con your brain immediately goes to like consumer brands throwing these lavish parties on yachts with celebrities.

00:00:52: Which

00:00:52: is usually what happens, right?

00:00:53: Right exactly but we need to completely reset the stage for this one.

00:00:57: We've been analyzing all of these dispatches The debates...the raw insights flooding LinkedIn from the B-to-B folks actually On the ground This year and What were looking at today Is not about the flashy parties.

00:01:10: It's about severe fundamental shifts in how enterprise growth is being orchestrated

00:01:18: Exactly.

00:01:19: I mean, if you're listening to this on your commute or sitting at your desk right now You are probably feeling the whiplash of last twelve months

00:01:25: Oh for sure.

00:01:26: And The biggest operational shift like the absolute center gravity at Khan This year was how the conversation around artificial intelligence has completely mutated.

00:01:36: Mutated is a great word For it Right!

00:01:38: Because we spent that Last Year treating AI Like a shiny new toy.

00:01:42: We ran pilots and did little isolated tests But based in Intel from Khan That era is completely over.

00:01:49: Yeah,

00:01:49: it's done.

00:01:50: the industry has no longer marveling at the engine.

00:01:52: The panic now is figuring out how to actually run the machine

00:01:56: and It is this sheer speed of that transition they just catching people off guard.

00:02:01: I think there was a great recap on LinkedIn from Fina Pang that really captured This.

00:02:06: oh yeah?

00:02:06: I saw that one.

00:02:07: yes She noted that.

00:02:08: the industry as official-done debating AI philosophically What if phase it's over.

00:02:15: We are in pure execution mode now, right?

00:02:17: She specifically highlighted that agentic systems and autonomous buying journeys They're beta tests anymore like they are shipping as we speak.

00:02:25: Okay wait before we go further down this road Let's unpack that for a second because agentic AI gets thrown around a lot in pitch decks.

00:02:31: Right?

00:02:31: no you definitely

00:02:32: does.

00:02:32: yeah.

00:02:33: And we aren't just talking about a slightly smarter chatbot That sits in the corner of your website, right What exactly is an AI agent doing in a twenty-twenty six B to be marketing workflow that a human being used to do?

00:02:45: That Is the crucial distinction actually.

00:02:48: A chatbot waits for a prompt.

00:02:50: An agentic system on the other hand has a goal and it executes The steps to achieve that goal autonomously.

00:02:57: right?

00:02:57: so in a bdb context an agent isn't just Writing email template, It is actively monitoring intent data across the web.

00:03:05: It notices that a target account is researching a specific problem, and then it dynamically generates a highly personalized outreach sequence.

00:03:13: Wow!

00:03:14: Yeah.

00:03:15: And then routes through your CRM secures internal compliance approval sends it analyzes the prospects reply and adjusts to next steps

00:03:23: which is insane right

00:03:24: all without a human marketer ever clicking send.

00:03:26: I mean, which sounds incredible on paper but in reality that brings up a massive issue.

00:03:31: think about it like this.

00:03:33: imagine your company just bought a fifty million dollar state-of the art formula one racing car.

00:03:38: yeah i like this.

00:03:39: It's an absolute masterpiece of engineering.

00:03:42: But there is just one massive problem.

00:03:44: Your current pit crew only knows how to change the tires On a two thousand twelve minivan.

00:03:49: That is painfully accurate

00:03:51: Right, and Danilatoro put out this brilliant insight during the festival that touched on exactly this.

00:03:56: He pointed out that picking the right tech partner is only like fifty percent of the challenge.

00:04:01: The real gritty painful work Is changing your internal operating models Your processes, your KPIs, your incentives

00:04:08: Because if you strap a hyper-efficient AI engine onto A broken legacy process All you do is scale the brokenness.

00:04:15: Exactly Toro was very specific about this, You have to rewire everything internally and This directly ties into what Linda Tong was hearing from Fortune.

00:04:24: five hundred CMOs on the ground at Khan.

00:04:26: Oh What were they saying?

00:04:27: They are entirely focused On what The modern marketing team even looks like in this environment.

00:04:32: But whole talent profile Is shifting dramatically To define future tech stacks.

00:04:38: So, are B-to-B marketing teams actually prepared to rebuild their entire workflow while the plane is still flying essentially?

00:04:45: Or they just strapping AI onto these broken processes like?

00:04:48: what does that new marketer even

00:04:50: look like.

00:04:50: Well The CMOs Tom spoke with Are looking for systems thinkers.

00:04:54: They're shifting away from people who manually execute tasks and moving toward People Who can architect the work flow And manage the AI agents.

00:05:01: I

00:05:02: hear That but let's be honest about the reality of BWB marketing for a second.

00:05:06: It is notoriously terrified at risk, it's safe and corporate.

00:05:10: if AI making good professional content virtually free and instantaneous to produce aren't most corporate brands just going use this tech pump out exact same boring white papers on massive scale?

00:05:24: Well that was the trap!

00:05:25: And its actually the exact tension driving these.

00:05:28: second major theme we saw emerging from deep dive into those posts Because AI is democratizing execution, making it practically free.

00:05:36: The execution itself is no longer a competitive moat

00:05:39: Right because everyone has

00:05:40: exactly having a flawless Ai generated.

00:05:43: twenty page report doesn't make you special when your competitor can generate the exact same report in three seconds.

00:05:48: So the only true competitive advantage left for a B to be brand Is the human driver?

00:05:53: Human creativity has officially become the premium layer.

00:05:56: I love that And that perfectly aligns with how Schuyler-Matson framed this.

00:06:00: She quoted Kinsani Nobanda on this, and the quote was that we should be using AI for The Logic so he can get to the magic.

00:06:07: THE LOGICS FOR THE MAGIC?

00:06:09: That is a great mental model!

00:06:10: Isn't

00:06:10: it?!

00:06:11: You use the machine For The Logic, The Scale, The Administrative Busy Work.

00:06:14: All of the paper cuts are the job... you clear away all of that So human beings Can Actually Focus On Original Thought The Magic.

00:06:22: And that magic Is Highly Specific.

00:06:25: Breanne Olson provided a really sharp perspective on this at Khan.

00:06:28: She acknowledged that in an AI powered world, the operational impact is totally undeniable.

00:06:33: but she made it explicitly clear technology alone will not create brand differentiation taste judgment community and culture.

00:06:42: those remain deeply stubbornly human.

00:06:45: you cannot automate cultural empathy

00:06:46: You can't code strategic judgement.

00:06:50: Yeah, Gulen Benji from Mars echoed this exactly on LinkedIn.

00:06:53: She shared their brand building philosophy and it was refreshingly blunt.

00:06:56: she said people creativity technology in that order and by design

00:07:01: In that order?

00:07:02: That's powerful

00:07:03: Right but let me throw another analogy at us just to see how it holds up.

00:07:06: Let say AI gives everyone the absolute best most expensive high-end camera lens in the world.

00:07:13: Suddenly every single brand has perfect focus Perfect lighting but you still need a photographer with actual taste to know how to frame the shot,

00:07:23: right?

00:07:23: So my question is considering B-to-B as so risk averse.

00:07:28: Will B-To-B brands actually be brave enough to lean into human emotion and culture or will they just default on the boring identical stuff?

00:07:36: Well... To answer that we have look at trust Because if human taste and authenticity are the new premium, BB brands have to fundamentally rethink who is delivering their message.

00:07:47: Buyers don't trust faceless corporate entities anymore.

00:07:50: They know an AI probably wrote that perfectly polished blog post.

00:07:53: Yeah they aren't stupid

00:07:54: Exactly!

00:07:55: They trust people.

00:07:55: And this points directly to third massive theme from the festival The rise of creators as core B-to-B marketing infrastructure.

00:08:02: Oh...this

00:08:02: is huge.

00:08:03: Cameron Buckner actually pointed out that Creators were not just participating as guests They were running the table.

00:08:10: Yeah, they were everywhere!

00:08:11: They were building massive IP ecosystems and securing real brand equity not just taking these one-off transactional brand deals anymore.

00:08:20: But here is the critical problem And Eli Schwartz offered a very sharp critique of this dynamic.

00:08:26: He pointed out that while consumer brands have spent the last decade Building entire creator economies Oh...they've

00:08:31: mastered it

00:08:32: Totally.

00:08:34: But B to B basically has none.

00:08:36: B-to-B influencer marketing is still just, you know a sponsored LinkedIn post and I hope it leaves a massive untapped infrastructure gap.

00:08:45: So when you say infrastructure gap what are we missing in b to be?

00:08:49: We're missing the standardized scalable ways to partner with an industry expert, track the pipeline they generate over a six-month campaign and actually compensate them based on revenue influenced.

00:08:59: Instead of just handing them a gift card?

00:09:00: Right Well you know building that external infrastructure takes a lot of time.

00:09:04: but the immediate solution to that gap might be sitting right inside your own building.

00:09:10: Employee creators Yes!

00:09:12: Milena Toro highlighted this fascinating pivot at Khan regarding employee-generated content.

00:09:18: She used the example of Starbucks and TikTok's partnership.

00:09:21: Oh, that was a great example.

00:09:22: Right.

00:09:23: think about the historical irony here.

00:09:24: for the last twenty years corporate employees were basically terrified to post about work.

00:09:29: It was a massive liability.

00:09:31: PR would lose their minds

00:09:32: right?

00:09:33: And now what used to be a liability is a massive marketing asset because consumers inherently trust a barista showing the reality of their job or in B to B's case, an engineer talking about a coding problem way more than a polished studio campaign.

00:09:47: It is so true!

00:09:48: But Daniel Shapiro predicted we are going see massive wave of these highly-nuched BtoB creators emerge from within companies and my pushback here Is our btb company really gonna empower their employees?

00:10:00: do this?

00:10:01: Like aren't they too paralyzed by the fear losing control?

00:10:05: They are definitely paralyzed by that fear, but the financial mandate is forcing their hand which brings us to the final major theme from The Crescent.

00:10:14: The CMO Mandate is expanding aggressively toward measurable business growth

00:10:19: because you have to justify the risk.

00:10:21: Exactly!

00:10:22: To justify the risks of empowering employee creators or deploying agentic AI... ...the BDBCMO must be able prove to the C-suite.

00:10:32: all this actually drives the bottom line

00:10:34: Right, which totally shifts the role of the CMO.

00:10:37: The conversations at Khan really highlighted this evolution from the Cmo being just a campaign executor to being a true business orchestrator.

00:10:46: Yeah, Sengita Prasad captured this perfectly.

00:10:48: She noted that marketing is no longer viewed as adjacent to growth.

00:10:52: It's expected to help shape it Which

00:10:53: requires more accountability and way less control Precisely And Lindsay Pollans from Serkana offered a really grounded reality check on this.

00:11:01: She pointed out that, sure, Khan is full of beautiful creative work but the most important conversation happening right now is proving that the work actually did anything.

00:11:10: she said creativity without data is just art.

00:11:14: Data Without Creativity Is Just Noise.

00:11:17: That's quote of year and we finally have hard data to back up.

00:11:22: why dual approach is financial necessity?

00:11:26: Christopher Harmon shared some notes on PwC and ANA research that was presented at GAN.

00:11:30: Okay, what did the numbers say?

00:11:32: It substantiated it brand plus demand marketing.

00:11:35: so balancing long-term brand building with AI driven performance actually drives two times The revenue growth of laggard competitors

00:11:43: Two times the growth.

00:11:44: Wow Yeah

00:11:45: You need the brand equity to build trust in the AI engine to capture the intent

00:11:49: It's like, okay.

00:11:50: The modern B-to-B CMO is an architect who has been given an impossible brief.

00:11:55: How so?

00:11:56: Well in the past they just had to design a beautiful building.

00:11:59: now They're being asked not only designed the building but also guarantee that property value increases by twenty percent By next quarter.

00:12:05: That exactly what it feels Like.

00:12:07: So how does A B-To-B CMO balance need for long term human led brand Building with the CFOs demand For instant measurable ROI without turning their whole department into a pure sales support machine.

00:12:21: You survive it by making the C-suite realize that the human element is only thing.

00:12:25: makes the ROI possible in first place, right?

00:12:28: The AI and creators are just delivery mechanisms for trust.

00:12:33: If the CFO wants instant ROI, the CMO has to prove authentic.

00:12:37: human centric brand building Is the only way to earn trusts from skeptical buyer In market completely saturated with AI

00:12:44: Man, that is so true.

00:12:46: Which leaves us with a final thought for you to chew on as we wrap up this deep dive.

00:12:50: Right now massive AI models are training on the content We produce today.

00:12:53: Yeah

00:12:53: literally right now

00:12:54: The brands that rely entirely On synthetic generation will eventually just be recycling themselves.

00:12:59: So what if the ultimate B-to-B growth hack For twenty twenty six isn't having the most advanced AI agent?

00:13:04: What If it's simply Having the courage To Be the most radically human brand in A sea of automated noise?

00:13:10: That Is definitely something to think about.

00:13:12: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

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00:13:25: Thanks so much for joining us on his deep dive.

00:13:27: Don't forget subscribe And we'll see you next time.