Cannes Lions 2025 Recap with Amazon’s Jeff Cohen

Summary

Podcast Summary: The CPG Guys – Cannes Lions 2025 Recap with Amazon’s Jeff Cohen

Release Date: June 21, 2025

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1. Introduction and Context

Hosted by Sri Rajagopalan and Peter V.S. Bond, The CPG Guys podcast delves into the dynamics of consumer engagement across various channels in the CPG and FMCG eCommerce landscape. In the June 21, 2025 episode, recorded live from Cannes, France, the hosts welcomed Jeff Cohen from Amazon Ads to discuss insights gathered at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

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2. Navigating Retail Media and the Impact of AI

A significant portion of the discussion centered on the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in retail media and advertising. Jeff Cohen emphasized how AI is not merely a buzzword but a pivotal force driving operational efficiencies and innovation within the industry.

• AI as a Driver for Efficiency:
  “First off, I think in general AI is a buzz. It was last year, but it's an even bigger buzz this year... But we do know that AI is impacting us.” ([09:39])

• Adoption and First-Mover Advantage:
  “Agencies, the partners, the advertisers that are leaning into it and are using it to find operational efficiencies... are the ones who can potentially have a first mover advantage.” ([09:53])

Cohen highlighted that embracing AI allows brands and agencies to optimize advertising dollars, resulting in more efficient campaigns and the potential for budget reallocation towards upper-funnel advertising strategies.

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3. The Evolution of Influencer Marketing and Digital Creators

The panelists delved into the burgeoning influence of digital creators and influencers in shaping consumer behavior and driving commerce. Jeff Cohen shared insights on how influencers are pivotal in building trust and expanding brand reach.

• Influencers as Community Builders:
  “Creators are giving you feedback about your product... And creators, when you work with them correctly, can actually help you build new products.” ([33:06])

• Case Study – Cheetos Campaign:
  “We created a whole integrated campaign where the creators were talking about what you do, because what people do is they actually grind Cheetos down and then they use it in their food.” ([34:30])

This example illustrated how leveraging creator-generated trends can lead to innovative product extensions, enhancing brand relevance and consumer engagement.

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4. Retail Media Networks and Industry Events

The conversation shifted to the prominence of Retail Media Networks (RMNs) like Amazon Ads in the current advertising landscape. The hosts and Jeff Cohen discussed the strategic importance of attending industry events such as Cannes Lions and CES for staying abreast of trends and fostering meaningful connections.

• Importance of Industry Events:
  “These shows require you to prepare, to come and then follow up... it's a must on my list.” ([23:27])

• Shift in Event Attendance:
  “At CES 2025 and this event, the Cannes Lions event, there's a huge decline in brand attendance. Only the senior most leaders from brands are here.” ([19:01])

Jeff Cohen underscored the necessity for senior leadership to engage in these events to understand and leverage the capabilities of RMNs, ensuring strategic alignment with evolving consumer behaviors.

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5. Networking: The Heartbeat of Cannes Lions

Networking emerged as a fifth major theme, highlighting the value of spontaneous and structured interactions in fostering collaborations and uncovering new business opportunities.

• Value of Unstructured Time:
  “Unstructured time is very important. You don't want to be completely structured in all of your time... Schedule spontaneity into your day.” ([37:05])

• Building Long-Lasting Connections:
  “I had numerous conversations with him. We're working on a couple of different things... These things start to open up.” ([37:17])

The hosts shared anecdotes demonstrating how networking at Cannes Lions leads to actionable insights and partnerships that drive both immediate and long-term business growth.

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6. Shifting Metrics: From ROI to Return on Consumer

A pivotal discussion point was the transition from traditional Return on Investment (ROI) metrics to a more holistic Return on Consumer (ROC) approach, emphasizing the importance of deep consumer insights and long-term brand loyalty.

• Panel Insights on ROC:
  “There is a big shift that's going on in terms of moving from return on investment or return on advertising spend into return on consumer.” ([41:12])

Peter V.S. Bond highlighted how Amazon Marketing Cloud’s five-year look-back window enhances understanding of consumer behavior, allowing brands to measure the true impact of their advertising efforts beyond immediate sales metrics.

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7. Future Initiatives and Closing Remarks

Looking ahead, the hosts teased forthcoming initiatives such as an AI strategy in the CPG Retail Executive program at Cornell, aimed at equipping industry leaders with the knowledge to leverage AI effectively.

• Upcoming Educational Programs:
  “Following the phenomenal success of the 2025 retail media strategy Exec Ed program at Cornell... the development of an AI strategy in CPG Retail Executive program coming to you very soon.” ([15:36])

In concluding remarks, the hosts and Jeff Cohen reiterated the importance of continuous learning, adaptation, and leveraging industry events to stay competitive in the ever-evolving CPG landscape.

• Commitment to Growth and Learning:
  “We are here as the CPG Guys to both educate and entertain our audience on what's relevant in our industry.” ([45:10])

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Notable Quotes

• Jeff Cohen on AI Impact:
  “Agencies, the partners, the advertisers that are leaning into it and are using it to find operational efficiencies... are the ones who can potentially have a first mover advantage.” ([09:53])

• Peter V.S. Bond on Event Attendance:
  “At CES 2025 and this event, the Cannes Lions event, there's a huge decline in brand attendance. Only the senior most leaders from brands are here.” ([19:01])

• Dan Elton on Influencer Hesitation:
  “Brands are largest brands in the world, are risk averse... But the world is today owned by digital creators.” ([31:41])

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Conclusion

This episode of The CPG Guys provided a comprehensive overview of the current trends and future directions in retail media, AI integration, and influencer marketing, enriched by on-ground insights from Cannes Lions 2025. Listeners gained valuable perspectives on optimizing advertising strategies, embracing digital creators, and leveraging industry events for sustained growth and innovation.

For additional content and episodes, visit cpgguys.com.

Transcript

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Chain Drug Review's focus is on reaching the key decision makers across all retail channels, delivering comprehensive coverage of the latest shopping trends and in depth category analysis on health, beauty, over the counter products and wellness. Whether it's the latest trends, emerging technologies, or strategies for adapting to new consumer behaviors, Mass Market retailers deliver the critical information retailers need to navigate this dynamic environment. To subscribe to the newsletters of CDR and mmr, simply follow the hyperlinks in the digital liner notes of this episode. Chain Drug Review and Mass Market Retailers are published by Retail Media iq.

[Jeff Cohen]

I'm Jeff Cohen with Amazon Ads and you're listening to the CPG Guys Podcast.

[Sri Rajagopalan]

Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your hosts, Sri Rajagopalan and Peter V S Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.

[Peter V S Bond]

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. We're coming to you from Cannes, France. We're attending the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and to talk about what's been going on here over the course of several days is our dear friend from Amazon Ads. He's a tech evangelist and more importantly, he's a dear friend of the pod, Jeff Cone. Jeff, how you doing?

[Jeff Cohen]

I'm, I'm doing great. It's, you know, early morning at the end of can. It's been a long week. We've had a lot of networking, a lot of conversation. I, I, it makes me think back to one of our team members walked in late to a meeting and she said sorry I'm late, I just had a 10 minute impromptu meeting as I was walking over here. And that's, that's what this show is about. It's not just about the scheduled meetings. It's a lot about the unstructured time of what's happening and the conversations that you're having along the way.

[Dan Elton]

Friends, the old friends in the industry maybe you haven't seen for a decade plus like I just did with somebody from the Albertsons team. But Jeff, before we do anything else, I think some thanks are in order here.

[Peter V S Bond]

We need to pass on big thanks.

[Dan Elton]

This episode cannot start. Although this is the endocan, our friendship is here for a lifetime. And a few days ago on Wednesday of the festival we released episode 500 with the header US ADS. The VP of US ADS, Dan Elton. That episode actually would not have been possible had you not really worked hard.

[Peter V S Bond]

To within the lobby facilitated advocated.

[Dan Elton]

Yeah, I'm going to say with the.

[Peter V S Bond]

Firewalls of Hammers on, we are Grateful.

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, listen, I think that one thing that I've tried to do since I've joined Amazon is really try to bring a human side of what happens inside Amazon out. And it's why I wanted to come and join Amazon, because when I was on the partner side, I sometimes felt like it was, you know, I felt like I hit up against some of those walls. And so when I'm working with our partners and they're trying to bring those walls down and I. I want to help them do that. And I think Amazon wants to be out there, they want to be sharing more, but they don't always necessarily know who to be going to and how to be doing it. And I think you guys are one of, if not the best places that we should be speaking to. Especially for somebody like Tanner, who speaks to many of the customers who listen.

[Dan Elton]

To this podcast, maybe that's where we start. But sincerely, Jeff, it wouldn't have happened without you.

[Jeff Cohen]

I want to say thank you. Yes.

[Dan Elton]

This is not the first time you've done that with us. You know, last year we recorded a bunch of podcasts for you, with you. You know, we're grateful for that. We even tried to link it live last year.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, we did. Maybe not the best idea, but it still worked out. Fail fast, fail fast, learn, move forward.

[Dan Elton]

Now we're in a quiet setting, but let's kick it off with what we learned on the episode with Tanner, which is actually live as of Wednesday of the festival. So I loved his. Besides learning the DNA of how Amazon ads functions, which is fascinating, I mean.

[Peter V S Bond]

He'S been there over 13 years, so he knows a great deal about the legacy of its first entry into advertising.

[Dan Elton]

And coming from the creative side of Amazon, which is more on the. The entertainment side. Yeah, he's just eloquent speaker. You can tell he comes from that side of the fence.

[Jeff Cohen]

He likes it. Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

Six C's he referred to. What do you guys think about that?

[Jeff Cohen]

Listen, I think that one of the things that I've realized since, and I've only been at Amazon three and a half years, and I was talking to my new director who's only been here for four months. One of the things that I don't think is seen from the outside or really understood from the outside is that the leadership principles are really lived every day. Everything does work backwards from the customer. It does work backwards from the voice of customer. And it's important for us to hear that feedback, to disseminate that feedback, and to ensure that we take that and put it back into the products that we're building. And it's not just something that we go out on podcast and talk about. It's something that in every meeting that we're having, it's a level of inspection that goes into what we're doing and how we're making decisions.

[Dan Elton]

I mean, certainly the one thing we know the world knows about Amazon that's been around, it's the customer obsession, has been around forever. But it shows in how you communicate. It shows in how you act right Internally. You keep up with the times trends. The customer obsession piece kind of almost requires you, but it's a choice you've made to really be if you're going to do it and if you're going to make it public, you want to be the best at it.

[Jeff Cohen]

I think of it as an inspection level, right? Like what is the true impact we expect the customer to have? Now, we always are thinking about the customer as the person who is viewing the ad or buying the product as a result of viewing the ad. But we also have our advertisers as a customer, we also have our partners as a customer. So there are a lot of different customers you do have to consider. But. But you also need to always link back to the idea of what's the ultimate impact to the shopper on Amazon, the viewer of prime video, the listener to the podcast or, you know, whatever is the end action that you're trying to drive. Because that's ultimately who you want to be engaged and who you want to be repeating that the process of coming back to what we have and wanting them to want to engage with us more foolproof formula.

[Peter V S Bond]

So why don't we get to talking about some important themes that were talked about here. I think clearly one of them is the impact that AI is going to have on content generation for all media, but particularly retail media, because there are so many RMNs here, Amazon ads being the predominant one. But for me, it's something that started, frankly when I really hit my radar was a couple years ago through Amazon. It was actually their Accelerate sellers conference and they introduced the capability for sellers to be able to fully populate a PDP with content from just something as simple as the information on a package fly.

[Dan Elton]

So, Jeff, I want to ask you.

[Peter V S Bond]

A question that was revolutionary, right? Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

I want to ask you a question in that and how you're thinking about this, right? It's not so much an Amazon question, it's a you question. Peter and I were lucky enough to attend a panel with Sir Martin. Sorrel legendary Sir Martin Sorrel. And by the way, we posted a picture with him.

[Peter V S Bond]

That was a bucket list, brother.

[Dan Elton]

It was a bucket list for Peter.

[Peter V S Bond]

It's like right there below meeting Jeff Cohen. And it was like pretty close.

[Dan Elton]

Jeffco number one. Now Jeff Cohen number one. Martin. So number two. So.

[Jeff Cohen]

There we go.

[Peter V S Bond]

But the difference is Martin Sorrel will actually let us take a picture with him.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yes.

[Dan Elton]

We have to ask Jeff. We haven't asked him yet. So one of the things that he was said pretty profoundly multiple times is there is a fact that AI and creative are deadly combination and that it is to be seriously considered by agencies as it is going to happen. Which means what agencies do today for a living cannot be what agencies do.

[Peter V S Bond]

Not, not only that, but how they generate revenue. That's what the model, the model has to change.

[Dan Elton]

Absolutely. The model has to change because today they're managing, they're managing advertisement placement and the creative of the ad ads. Tomorrow the creative of the ads can be created by AI for the most part, as well as the placement of the ads can be done by AI. And he also said, I will make it a heck of a lot more efficient, which means the dollars will shrink as well. Love to hear your thoughts of what have you been learning in the show.

[Jeff Cohen]

First off, I think in general AI is a buzz. It was last year, but it's an even bigger buzz this year. I mean, I'm looking and there's a huge banner that says, you know, that's, that's talking about AI.

[Dan Elton]

What is truth AI.

[Jeff Cohen]

I think at the end of the day it's really impossible to know what the future is going to be. But we do know that AI is impacting us. And I think that the, the agencies, the partners, the advertisers that are leaning into it and that are using it to find operational efficiencies, that are using it to find ways of growing their business are the ones who can potentially have a first mover advantage as we move forward. I don't love to be a pro, a prognosticator because one thing I have learned is that whatever we envision is probably not how things will actually work out. Like we, we, we've all been around for a long time. We're saying we're, we're, yeah, we're, we're older, we're older. We've all seen.

[Dan Elton]

Which means we should have more wisdom.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yes.

[Jeff Cohen]

But we've all seen the evolution of things like the mobile phone and E commerce. And if we even think back to like what we thought E commerce was going to be in the early 2000s. It's significantly different than what it is today. And it's had an impact, but I don't know that we would have completely been able to understand what that impact would be. So I think that it's not necessarily about what is the impact in the future. It's more about how are you embracing social media something today so that you're prepared for what the potential impact in the future is. There's lots of things that cause disruption in our space. I think one of the things that good brands, good agencies, good partners in the space are able to do is they're able to adapt as the market changes. And some will lead and some will, you know, will need to catch up. And AI is definitely driving us forward faster and it's creating a lot of great innovation.

[Peter V S Bond]

In our conversation with Tanner, he said it's not about predicting the future. It's about knowing what is true today and what. And what the things you know that are true today you believe are going to carry on into the future. And using that as your premise for.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, use that as the foundation.

[Peter V S Bond]

That's the foundation for your decision.

[Dan Elton]

There's no doubt about it. But I also think about sharpening the pencil. Right. And there's some. AI is, in my humble opinion, AI is still a buzzword because most people are trying to discover what to do with it.

[Jeff Cohen]

They are.

[Dan Elton]

They often confuse machine learning as well as natural language processes and you know, variety of things built around this ecosystem as outcome versus that is a means to an end. But I think what I really took away from that message is those means to an end will actually become means to an end.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yes.

[Dan Elton]

And the bigger thing in what he said so much was not creative will be dependent on AI, but more because of optimization of advertising dollars. Advertising budgets will actually shrink because they'll be highly and efficiently optimized. That to me, I'm not talking about RMNs, I'm just talking about the advertising publishers in general. Should they be thinking about it? Is it even something that should be discussed?

[Jeff Cohen]

I think it's too early to actually discuss it. It's hard. Again, it's hard to say something's going to happen or something's not going to happen or something should happen or something shouldn't happen. But I think that what we can do is we should be looking for ways to use AI to optimize our ads. We should be looking for ways to improve the roas or the new to brand metrics or whatever the KPI metrics are. And then if there's additional ways to explore with an R and D budget of ways to expand the reach of your brand, maybe this is an like, instead of looking at it as what may happen, let's look at it what the opportunity is. And what about a brand who hasn't traditionally spent in upper funnel advertising, who's able to be more efficient in what they were doing before and now they have money to go try upper funnel advertising. And so I think there's.

[Dan Elton]

That's a big deal what you just said.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right. And as you democratize as AI, as you democratize and that's what I think Amazon has really been doing with streaming television and tools like performance plus it's creating an opportunity for challenger brands and even existing brands to find new audiences and get more hyper targeted in the way that they're using signals to precision build precision based campaigns.

[Dan Elton]

And in some ways, Jeff, if you go back pre Covid, this festival is all about creative and it's definitely shifted. That's post Covid, it became sharing the.

[Peter V S Bond]

Stage with something beyond just the creative element.

[Jeff Cohen]

I've never been to this show pre Covid, I've only, I've only heard. But yes, I do think one of my themes of this show is, is the continued growth of, I'll say, larger retail media networks that are here. Right. Disney has a much bigger presence this year than they've ever had before.

[Peter V S Bond]

Chase Media Solutions right there on the beach. Right.

[Dan Elton]

Let's dig into retail media. So clearly one emerging theme hotel probably is going to repeat itself year over year as AI and creative here at Canon. And rightfully it should be one of the biggest topics in a quote unquote creative festival. Let's jump into our events.

[Peter V S Bond]

Okay, one thing I want to say before that because I'm going to drop a little Easter egg. Oh for our fans, following the phenomenal success of the CBG guys partnering with a bunch of. They're a little self important, if you.

[Jeff Cohen]

Know what I mean.

[Peter V S Bond]

They talk about themselves.

[Dan Elton]

Okay.

[Peter V S Bond]

Following the phenomenal success of the the 2025 retail media strategy Exec Ed program at Cornell, don't be surprised, don't be surprised if you see the development of an AI strategy in CPG Retail Executive program coming to you very soon.

[Dan Elton]

But no bs this is about on the job.

[Peter V S Bond]

This is not about what it means for you. Tactical education. This is how do you as a leader, a CMO head of digital really leverage AI through this?

[Dan Elton]

No scared tactics.

[Peter V S Bond]

No, no.

[Dan Elton]

Yeah.

[Jeff Cohen]

That's really what and this is, and I think what I've been asked this question quite a few times because a lot of our partners are starting to develop these agentic AI solutions which are more than just copilots or chats. They're actually doing deep research. And I think there's a lot that ZMO, not just CMOs but even hands on keyboard operators are going to need to learn in terms of how do you inspect what comes back? Because AI is, is great and it can do a lot of really good research for you, but you have to shift it to make sure that it's working in the way that you want it to work.

[Peter V S Bond]

It's understanding your brand, tweaking it and feeding that your. You need to give AI feedback as to what it's its output is and then feed that as input back into the algorithm which allows us. It's like, it's like figuring out what the HEAD terms are.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right.

[Peter V S Bond]

For search. Right. You need to tell them oh, that's not wrong. This doesn't fit a brand guideline. It develops it. But what I do want to talk about Sharif, is you brought it up is retail media.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yep.

[Dan Elton]

That's our second theme.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yeah, yeah. This is, this is it. Three years ago maybe you and I would have said the preeminent events to discuss industry wide retail media were probably shop talk and maybe grocery shop for food a little bit. Ces.

[Dan Elton]

CES is actually.

[Peter V S Bond]

No, my point is where are we now? It was very clear to us in, in January that all the bit to Jeff's point, all the big RMS were there on force. Not just they were represented, they were represented by the highest. Highest. Yeah, publishers. Highest echelon of leadership in those entities. If, if, if that's how they kick off the year. Can is where they all come together to talk about what they've done so far and where they're going to take for the balance of the year into the next year. So I say that CES and CAN are the preeminent events, no doubt about it, for brands and publishers to talk about how they can invest their dollars to grow their business.

[Dan Elton]

Your thoughts on that, sir? Are these now emerging as the two big events for all the RMN publishers to really get stuff done, move the needle with the industry.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, I mean I obviously we all attend a lot of events. I think it's for the question becomes how many events can the brands attend? Right. You know this, you know this from your day.

[Peter V S Bond]

We feel the pain now.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right.

[Peter V S Bond]

As CPT guys.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right.

[Dan Elton]

Everywhere. That's right.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right. And so they're gonna have to be judicious and they're gonna have to decide who's going to what. So I think it depends on who you're target at that brand is that will determine what's happening at. And each of these shows will probably have you aligning and talking with different people at that level.

[Dan Elton]

I have a huge observation on that.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

So at CES 2025 and this event, the Cannes Lions event, there's a huge decline in brand attendance. Only the senior. Most leaders from brands are here.

[Jeff Cohen]

Okay.

[Dan Elton]

And then I flip the coin and look at Grocery Shop and Shop Talk. Brand attendance surging, but it's much more junior people. The senior leaders are not going to grocery shop and Shop Top.

[Peter V S Bond]

What's happened between Shop Talk in March and CES now? Incredible expansion of volume challenges.

[Dan Elton]

Yep.

[Peter V S Bond]

And what have a lot of CPGs done? They've taken back travel. They've taken relatively draconian measures on reducing expenses. Right. And that's the first wave. The first wave is cut down. The next wave is reorganization.

[Dan Elton]

I'm sorry, Peter, but there's a huge miss.

[Jeff Cohen]

But that. That's where I think Sri. Your. Your point is? I think the point I was trying to make, which is if you're trying to speak to senior senior leadership, then this is the show that you want to be at. Yeah. If you are looking to share across maybe more of the hands on keyboard operators, then you're talking about going to like a shop talk.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yeah.

[Jeff Cohen]

I'll even throw possible in there. Right. Like Possible is that majorly expanded this year. Very blue and into the Eden Rock. I didn't attend, but the people that attended still say that it was great. But I don't think it had a major.

[Peter V S Bond]

That was more focused on the audience there.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yes.

[Peter V S Bond]

For attendance were agencies.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yes.

[Peter V S Bond]

I. I don't know about brands being there. Brands were on stage. But it was very clear to me when I looked at who actually attended. Because we registered. Sometimes we register for conferences not because we have the facility to go to them, because we have to be judicious, but once we're registered, we can actually see in the attendee list who.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Peter V S Bond]

And what I saw was modern handful of brands, a heavy focus on RMNs bringing their. Their agency salespeople.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Peter V S Bond]

To talk to the agencies. Great. But still very important for that, for.

[Jeff Cohen]

That community cohort you need to speak to. Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

So one of the things I want to actually call out is to my peer brethren in the CPG community. And I want to call you out those that of you in commercial leadership, quote unquote, sales leaders, CCOs, especially chief customer officers, North America, President of Sales.

[Peter V S Bond]

You know any people like, why are.

[Dan Elton]

You not here at Cannes? Why are you not at ces? Just because you run a sales team doesn't give you an excuse to not know what, what the hell is going on in the world of advertising. Because it's the, it's the same damn consumer, at the end of the day, you're trying to influence with a 2 for 9 or with an ad. And in the world of almost 100, 100% digitally influenced anything in life, including just from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night, regulating your sleep, there is no excuse for you not to be here. Why, why are these events?

[Jeff Cohen]

I think that, I think this event, this is just my take from coming here now for this is my fourth year. This event requires you to come once to really understand it and its impact. And your first time coming will probably not be your highest return on investment. And then after you come once, you will have a much better sense of how to come prepared. Shows require you to prepare, to come, come and then follow up. Yeah, right. There's three stages to it. And the work that we do at Amazon leading up to the show to prepare for all the meetings that we're going to have to ensure that they're fruitful for our customer is, is significant, that investment is significant. And then it's a matter of what do we do with all that feedback that we get afterwards. How does that inform our product development?

[Dan Elton]

You guys at Amazon have figured out how to conquer the show very well.

[Jeff Cohen]

But it takes time, right?

[Peter V S Bond]

You, you can't, you have to back it up and put in, you have to understand what are the outcomes you're looking for and then execute the components that lead to those outcomes.

[Dan Elton]

Let me rephrase what I'm saying without, you know, I, I got aggressive there and I called up.

[Peter V S Bond]

No, no, I want to put it in more simple terms to a cco, the reason you want to go is while we do understand that 75, more than 75 of all dollars invested in retail go to our friends in Seattle at Amazon for the 100 plus RMNs. Right? With the exception of them and maybe one other, the actual investment in those RMNs and is being managed by customer teams. That's your customer teams. If you're not here, how, how do you know what, what all these ARM ends can do and help you drive growth?

[Dan Elton]

My point.

[Peter V S Bond]

Which is your biggest challenge.

[Dan Elton]

That's my point, Peter. And Also, Amazon leaders are here. Right. From retail media perspective.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

Across the board, various verticals, food, vertical consumables, yada, yada, yada. Right. And very simple. You said it yourself. We are in the middle of a volume crisis in the industry.

[Jeff Cohen]

Who.

[Dan Elton]

Who's the one that can flip that volume crisis? Consumers. What is the show about? Creative consumers, retail media. That those are the three themes you want to make a difference.

[Peter V S Bond]

Show up. Yeah.

[Jeff Cohen]

Participate, shape, and you might learn something that it was something that you maybe have heard about. Like, for instance, the bit. One of the. One of the big themes that's really evolved in this show over the last two years, last year and this year is the power of influen.

[Dan Elton]

Oh, yeah.

[Jeff Cohen]

And this isn't just about the big stars, right? There's plenty of big stars. I was at a con. I was at a concert the other night with Jason Derulo, and I saw Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki, and there were plenty of athletes and stars that were there. But My niece, who's 21, and my daughter, who's 19, were texting me this week going, why is every influencer that I follow on Instagram at can.

[Dan Elton]

So. So it's like this, like.

[Jeff Cohen]

It's like this light bulb moment. It was kind of.

[Dan Elton]

You showed me that text and I'm like. But your niece said the right thing.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

She prompted you and me, when we. When you got that text and you showed it to me to think about, were even you and I fully accepting in our minds. We talked about the two teams as retail media networks and AI Influencer marketing, Influencer participation. Digital content creator is the third team over here. Yes.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, it's a.

[Dan Elton]

It's a big building down the road to the Carlton Hotel. It's been taken over by digital. That's all the people that are staying.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

If you're.

[Jeff Cohen]

If you're a young. If you're a youngin and you come to this show and you want to find the influencers, hang out at the Carlton Hotel. Right.

[Peter V S Bond]

You can literally take it in our rooms from us. That's why we're at an Airbnb down the beach, by the way. You can.

[Jeff Cohen]

Literally. Your Airbnb is pretty cheap. Nice. You know, I'm just gonna. Well, but here's what I would say.

[Dan Elton]

It's.

[Jeff Cohen]

It's showing the impact that these influencers can have on your business. And it's not necessarily about how you go out and you get the biggest one. It's how you use influencers to drive more scale and to drive More trust.

[Dan Elton]

Passionately about. Bingo. Trust in your brand.

[Jeff Cohen]

And like, that's what we found with Twitch. Right? What we found with Twitch and we found with like Wondery Podcast is that communities connect to their podcast host. They connect to their streamer. And when their podcast host or their streamer talks about a product that they have an affinity to, their community wants to go out and support them and they want to try that product. And so that's why this is becoming a theme here. Because yes, it's creative and they are creators, but in the same regard, they're driving commerce.

[Peter V S Bond]

One last thing, I'll say to the CCOs out there. Not if, but when you come to can, you're going to notice. You're gonna. You're gonna be tempted to do what your CMOs do, which is appear on every stage and be on every panel possible. Let them do that. That's kind of what their business is. Your job is to come here and to listen. To listen to learn and to meet people.

[Dan Elton]

And by the way, one of the ways. So Team three digital creators. I want to come back to that because I have. I love to pick your brain more on that, especially that you come from Amazon. But you're going to theme four now, which I think even you and I don't do a great job often. We'll ask Jeff a few years, which is. There is so much content that is being shared at this festival. It's overwhelming in front of us right there.

[Peter V S Bond]

It's like drinking water from a fire hose.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yes.

[Dan Elton]

You just look across the balcony.

[Peter V S Bond]

Look across the balcony and all you see are tents with doordash. You see.

[Dan Elton]

I'm not even going there, Peter.

[Peter V S Bond]

That's like the. All of these. I mean, it's crazy. A lot of concepts.

[Dan Elton]

There is content after content programming.

[Peter V S Bond]

They've added new, new actual categories at Cannes this year, which are focused specifically on commerce, marketing.

[Dan Elton]

And this tracks. There's so much learning. Year one year, I actually said as many.

[Jeff Cohen]

I actually said it coming home from dinner that I don't have enough balance in my schedule to be able to absorb the content that's here because I'm too busy engaging in the content or. Or in meetings, which is great. Now, since we're highlighting can. I'll throw in there that one of the awesome sessions was that Andy Jassy was here and Andy Jassy was given the 2025 media person of the Year.

[Peter V S Bond]

Phenomenal.

[Dan Elton]

Congratulations.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, thank you. And like, that was super exciting. I think it validates.

[Peter V S Bond]

No surprise, though.

[Jeff Cohen]

It validates. I Think what Amazon is doing in the space and how Amazon is. It is really become, you know, a player in not just sponsored ad media.

[Dan Elton]

But yeah, that's why you're not an rmn. You're a national media player.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, I mean it's, you're a public. It's exciting. I think a lot of us felt, a lot of, A lot of our team that was here felt a lot of pride. Andy didn't just speak in the Palais, he, he walked through port. Right. It was a, it was an exciting meet and greet. Well, I wish I wanted a meet and greet. That was. I was going for that photo but it didn't, didn't happen.

[Peter V S Bond]

We had, we had our bucket. Bucket list moment with Martin Sorrell. We were like, I want my Andy.

[Jeff Cohen]

Jackson, by the way.

[Dan Elton]

CES 2024. I remember sitting at a penthouse on. It wasn't Mandalay Bay Aria, if I remember correctly, Paul Kudis, we had a top to top with General Mills and I kind of said, Guys, in 2024, we're going to look at you as a national media player, not as an rmn. I don't think even my CMO at that point we made eye contact and I'm not sure we all agree he.

[Peter V S Bond]

Wasn'T totally bought in.

[Dan Elton]

But I'm like, if there is one RMN that will be a national media player and I actually use the word you're promoted in the eyes of General.

[Peter V S Bond]

Mills and all you've done since you've been here. The two big announcements coming out of this, Roku and Disney.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right.

[Peter V S Bond]

Prove that.

[Dan Elton]

Hallelujah. So I want to go back to the digital creator team.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yep.

[Jeff Cohen]

Right.

[Dan Elton]

Which was theme three. Theme four was you can actually learn. But let's come back to digital creator.

[Peter V S Bond]

Right.

[Dan Elton]

We just talked about Carlton being takeover. Takeover by digital creators. But why are brands so hesitant to work with digital creators and influencers? Like, here's my, here's my learning. Right? Brands are largest brands in the world, are risk averse. Like highly risk averse, very PR controlled. And I understand why. Because you have equity and reputation, you have to be you. You have to be sensitive and careful around that. That's the world I come from. But the world is today owned by digital creators. I mean, this device that we use for smartphone for everything we do in our lives is largely now run by digital creators. If you don't figure out how to embrace it, put it into brand equity development, you are losing the play and holding consumerism back. You're not doing the right thing for the I'D love to get both your opinions.

[Peter V S Bond]

The leaders, the cmo, the SVP of marketing level, they're still of the generation, much like myself, that went to a very formal MBA program. Right? And we did Cutler's book. We got Marketing 51.

[Dan Elton]

Looks like he drank the koolaid like us.

[Peter V S Bond]

They, they, they. I don't want to say they say they, they think their own stuff smells awesome. But what, what they, what they try to do is say, listen, I'm trying to build a brand narrative. And they look at creators, they're changing, but too many of them still look at it as like I'm playing whack a mole and I want to control the message. And I don't like the fact that you're a message they're not embracing the fact that these creators are, are telling them what they think about your, their brand. And maybe you should embrace what they're telling you and figure out how do you either.

[Dan Elton]

Isn't that what friends that's all about?

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, here, first off, I'll, I'll take your comment back to early days of my time in the Amazon space when, when I had started my tech company and people would talk to me about how, you know, the question I would always get was, how do I get rid of a bad review? And my response was, you build a better product. Right. So creators are giving you feedback about your product.

[Peter V S Bond]

It's a gift.

[Jeff Cohen]

But here's the other thing, and this is, I think the other place to lean into creators is that creators, when you work with them correctly, can actually help you build new products. They can help you build product extensions. Right.

[Peter V S Bond]

Into other. Collaborate into other categories, into other applications. Yeah.

[Jeff Cohen]

And so I think that when you, when you lean into a creator, you do need to have inspection for who you're working with. But when you're just using creators to create a series of videos that are out there for you, I think that the risk is, is not as high. Right. So when your creator becomes a spokesperson, then you want to maintain that same level of inspection that you've always had with your brand. But I think the real value that's out there, and I'll use Beauty as a, as an example, because I think it happens in that space quite often, is that somebody will start making short videos on a routine that they're doing and it will become a trend and it will spark the growth of your product sales. And if you're not tracking your sales properly and you're not tracking social trends, you don't know what's happening. And a great example is what Amazon did with Cheetos. Right. So Amazon was working with, with, with Cheetos and they leaned into the idea that when you eat Cheetos, you get the Cheetle.

[Peter V S Bond]

It's called Cheetle the gold, the. It's the powder that's on the fingers.

[Jeff Cohen]

And so we created a whole integrated campaign where the creators were talking about what you do, because what people do is they actually grind Cheetos down and then they use it in their food.

[Peter V S Bond]

They'll make an ingredient.

[Jeff Cohen]

It's an ingredient. And so they use it as like a crust on a, on a chicken wing. Right. And so you lean into the creators, you lean into the moments, and you build moments around them. And those are new campaigns for you to be thinking about that are going to help you connect with a new audience that are going to help you grow your brand in ways that you weren't necessarily thinking or maybe reinvent your brand in ways, you know, one, one.

[Peter V S Bond]

Use that they found people were using with Cheeto was they were mixing it in with their macaroni and cheese.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah.

[Peter V S Bond]

And they said, why are we letting another company who makes. Manufacture, Manufactures macaroni cheese take that business away from us? What did they do? They launched Cheetos macaroni and cheese, multiple flavors.

[Jeff Cohen]

So create, so creator. They looked all the creator trends and they launched new products from it. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's leaning into it. And so I do think there's two sides of it. I think here it here the conversation is more about creators and community and how creators build community. But I think when you are inspecting that as a CPG leader, you need to say, okay, creators have community, they're developing trends, they're socializing trends. And there may be opportunities for me to create product extensions. I mean, you were at General Mills. How many different times did the box change because of what was happening? What, what the, the latest trend was that was going on? Like, it's just, it's part of how we've always done business. We just need to apply it to the new mediums that are, that are out there today.

[Dan Elton]

So my rant is done on that one. As we get to the closing this episode, I'd love to go to a theme five. And that was the endless, countless networking you get to do over here because you're meeting friends from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, two years ago, somebody you met last year.

[Peter V S Bond]

When we post a picture on, on LinkedIn about our being here, we get communicated almost Instantaneously from people here. You're here.

[Jeff Cohen]

Oh, you're here.

[Peter V S Bond]

Can I connect with you now? Yeah. It's there to the point you made.

[Dan Elton]

Turn down 10 people because I don't have time.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah. I think that one thing, for anyone who comes to the show, that's thinking about coming to the show, you do want to plan unstructured time being completely learned.

[Dan Elton]

We've learned a bad lesson this year that unstructured time is important.

[Jeff Cohen]

It is. Unstructured time is very important. You don't want to be completely structured in all of your time. I think the second thing is I.

[Peter V S Bond]

Schedule spontaneity into my day. That's. That's how I work, do things here at camp.

[Jeff Cohen]

That's right.

[Peter V S Bond]

And I know when I'm spontaneous, I know exactly how I'm going to be spontaneous.

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, I mean, but I'll say, last year, you and I were walking down the Palais and you introduced me to the team at Nielsen iq. And over the last year, I've had numerous conversations with him. We're working on a couple of different things that they're doing with Amazon, and that's how I. These things start to open up. And so you will come here with very specific business goals of what you're trying to accomplish, but you'll also find new opportunities that you never thought of. Last night. Last night at dinner. Every year that I come here, I like to have dinner with a bunch of our EU partners. I don't give enough attention to the EU community, and they'll probably agree when they, when they hear that. But I love getting all of the EU team together. These are our partners that are spread throughout Europe that all come to this show. And my ability to just sit down, I had 15 of them that were there last night. Just sit down with each of them for 10 minutes at dinner and. And hear what they're doing, what they're trying to accomplish. It was kind of speed dating, but I learned a lot about their business. And so, you know, that is, I could have very easily just gone to dinner with the same people that I go to every year. But that's a way to expand my personal understanding of the market, of the trends of what's happening. But also I walked away with a lot of action items of how I can help them to make their business better, which will, in turn, you know, help Amazon in the long run.

[Dan Elton]

Absolutely. Networking, I think, is our fifth theme over here. You're going to meet with who's, who's, whether it's a publisher, whether it's an agency that helps you publish, whether it's an actual retail media network, a retailer, a brand, service providers, tech providers, martech providers, they're all here. If you're in the game of consumerism, you need to be here.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yeah, Shree, I'll give you one great case example. If you've listened to this podcast, we've had a, a guest on twice, Jack Shannon from Recess. And Jack has been kind of shadowing us, helping us with some of our, some of the podcasts we've been recording. But in doing so he gets to meet people. And he said to us, I think Monday after dinner, he said we're, we're a day in and I have already vastly exceeded my expectations from the connections and the opportunities that can presents to me. Yeah, that was a true truth telling story.

[Dan Elton]

So as we wrap up, I'm going to summarize real quick five big themes emerging over here. If you listen to the whole episode, I will come back next year for sure. I'm guessing Jeff, so will you because we are curious. We want to learn. We want to continue to shape the industry.

[Jeff Cohen]

Yeah, I've learned. I continue to learn. This show becomes, I'll say, easier for me as you come here more and more you meet more people, you start to bump into people. It's kind of crazy if you think about it. There's what, 15,000 people here a lot?

[Dan Elton]

Is that the number?

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, yeah, it's, it's, I'll say between 10 and 15, you know, what's 5,000 people? And it's a small town but literally very narrow streets. If you literally just walk down the street, you bump into people, you do that, you know, and as you come here more and more, you meet more people, you bump into more people. And I love that and I love being able to connect and to learn and to help drive action for our partners. And this show is a must on my list.

[Peter V S Bond]

1, 1 Personal high point for me during the show beyond obviously spending time with you guys and Sree. The 500th episode was on Wednesday afternoon. I got to moderate a panel including my Flywheel colleague Claudia Johnson and Lily Tong from Amazon Advertising to, to talk about the, the big shift that's going on in terms of moving from return on investment or return on advertising spend into return on consumer. And, and that was another key theme that I would be remiss if I didn't call out.

[Dan Elton]

Let's just close it out talking about that just a tad more, if you don't mind. So.

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, I want to Add one point which is that there is like the official programming and then there are all these side programs.

[Peter V S Bond]

There's, there's, there is complimentary programs that's being produced by the agencies, by some of the service providers, by a whole bunch of others. So if you come here and all you're doing is going to the pallet.

[Jeff Cohen]

The Palais, you learn, you learn.

[Peter V S Bond]

But you won't learn nearly as much as you walk down the beach and you go, you go to Amazon port, you go to the media link beach event, all of the Omnicom space, all of them there. There's so much content that's taken place.

[Dan Elton]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Claudia on Wednesday really talk about the consumer aspect versus a return on ad spend is actually in my mind the CPG guys will be talking about that as a metric a lot. Go forward. Inspiring to hear the concept you all.

[Peter V S Bond]

Are creating at flight and it's why, it's why things like Amazon marketing cloud are so critically important.

[Jeff Cohen]

Well and it's a driver for you know we co developed with you guys the five year look back window.

[Peter V S Bond]

Right. Very, very important for slower moving consumer goods where the, where the purchase frequency is not like every three weeks. It's, you know, how often do you buy a new high definition television?

[Jeff Cohen]

Well but it's also even for the consumer goods that do move fast. Right. Just being able to have that longer look back window gives you so much more insight into the impact that your.

[Peter V S Bond]

Ads you have a better understand of who is a truly new to brand.

[Jeff Cohen]

Correct. And I think like that by having the unlock of that signal you then can get to the value of the consumer in a way that you weren't able to get to it six months ago.

[Peter V S Bond]

Yeah.

[Dan Elton]

So let me wrap this one up by reminding audience that you can find all of our content simply by going to a web browser.

[Peter V S Bond]

How much content do we have there?

[Jeff Cohen]

Over 500.

[Dan Elton]

Jeff is 501.

[Peter V S Bond]

501.

[Dan Elton]

He's introducing us 501 second half of his power.

[Peter V S Bond]

So he's like the button fly, Levi's blue jeans. He's 501.

[Jeff Cohen]

We did double take with him.

[Peter V S Bond]

Boy, are we dating ourselves.

[Jeff Cohen]

All right, let me.

[Peter V S Bond]

I know. Remember when that was cool and hot.

[Dan Elton]

If you or anyone you know would, would want to contribute to this ongoing community discussion we have on this, please drop us an [e-mail] again that's contactpguys.com to our followers. Thank you so much for your clicks. Likes DMS coming to these trade shows, coming to our Events, whether they're dinners, lunches, panels, just thank you, thank you, thank you to all our sponsors. The show doesn't exist without you and for being all your sponsors, thank you, thank you, thank you. Jeff, busy, busy, busy conference. Great friend of the show. We owe you. Thank you for not just landing us episode 500, but also being a guest for 501 to wrap up what went on with the show.

[Jeff Cohen]

Well, thank you guys and appreciate it and congratulations on all your success and look forward to working on 550 or 600 with you guys.

[Dan Elton]

Looking, looking forward, looking forward. And you know, a couple of years from now, Jeff, you're going to be guest number thousand. I'll be looking forward to that.

[Jeff Cohen]

If I'm still, if I'm still working, maybe doesn't matter by then.

[Dan Elton]

It doesn't matter what you're doing. We want you.

[Peter V S Bond]

Sri. Thank you for a fantastic Cannes Lions 2025. It's our second year here and I know it certainly won't be our last. We'll be here bigger and better. But to our audience, we're so greatly appreciative. 37/000 followers on LinkedIn who engage with us, look to us to both educate and entertain them on what's relevant in our industry. We, we, we are appreciative and we look forward to speaking with you on the next episode.

[Dan Elton]

I got one more thing. We have a very special download count to announce very shortly.

[Peter V S Bond]

Okay.

[Dan Elton]

A big one. We're only a couple weeks away from that.

[Peter V S Bond]

All right.

[Jeff Cohen]

So.

[Peter V S Bond]

But I won't say it, but you.

[Jeff Cohen]

Could help accelerate it by downloading.

[Dan Elton]

Thank you, sir. Yeah, but he's the cool marketer.

[Peter V S Bond]

We look. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of the CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye, Foreign.

[Unknown]

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