This post was created in partnership with Iterable
Mainstream AI usage is quickly transforming consumer engagement with brands, requiring a shift from high-volume, transactional marketing to high-value, personalized relationships.
During an ADWEEK House Cannes Lions Marketing Vanguard Roundtable co-hosted with Iterable, industry leaders discussed how AI has upended the traditional channel mix, enabled new connection strategies, and unlocked new creative opportunities for marketers.
Data transparency, personalization, and evolved consumer expectations
Heather Blank, SVP of marketing strategy and partnerships at Iterable, kicked off the conversation by highlighting how consumers are more aware of the data marketers are leveraging—and how increased AI adoption has only underscored the need to be transparent and accurate with that data to provide personalized experiences they can trust.
“Customers are expecting better and more relevant experiences,” Blank said. “And they’re voting with their wallets.”
The panelists agreed data collection that enables better personalization—especially in the AI space—can lead to greater impact, if done accurately and transparently. And people are often more willing to share more personal information if they believe they’ll get a better experience.
“Consumers want the end experience to be magical for them, and that bar is high,” explained Jim Mollica, CMO and president of luxury audio at Bose. “They don’t get upset with the data collection unless you abuse it.”
Personalization technology can enhance the brand experience, but the panelists were aware that a lack of accuracy—or, in the case of AI, hallucinations—is still a very real issue and has the capacity for negative impact on brand sentiment.
Najoh Tita-Reid, chief brand and experience officer at Mars Petcare, noted every brand will have a different threshold on how personalization issues tied to AI memory and hallucinations need to be monitored.
“Pet care is our most personalized business,” Tita-Reid shared, explaining that once you have information about a consumer and their pet, a marketer wants to keep that individual as a customer for life. “So, I have to be super aggressive about how I leverage AI to give you a phenomenal relationship. And if I mess up and I do that personalization wrong … these are serious stakes. I’ve got to do it with excellence and accuracy.”
The shift in marketing mix and search behavior
The panelists centered their talk around the overall shift in where consumers are engaging with their brands. All shared they are seeing a big move away from search and toward AI and social media, especially with Gen Z audiences.
“At Iterable, we’re seeing organic search traffic drop off,” Blank said. “Email marketing has been dying for 20 years, but it’s still there—it’s the workhorse. But social media channels are coming on.”
Dara Treseder, CMO of Autodesk, agreed, adding that on the B2B side, they’re seeing the same decrease in search—in favor of AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. “There’s also a little bit more trust in those platforms because they don’t yet have advertising,” Treseder explained.
The panelists discussed how AI model development has had a big impact on marketing strategy and prioritization. Tita-Reid called out the fact that earned media is powering AI in terms of the types of media being used to train large language models. “We’re now leading our entire mix with earned media, which is a very big flip from where we were maybe six months ago.”
From optimization to reinvention
With models constantly upgrading, the business utility of AI tools continues to grow. And having teams thinking nimbly and proactively about leveraging more automated integrations to influence business outcomes was top of mind across the board.
Treseder was bullish on the role she wants AI to have within her organization. “I’m on this mission to get my entire marketing org 100% AI-powered … ideally within the next 12 months. You either upskill yourself or you get left behind, that’s just the reality.”
Mollica seconded that idea, saying embracing curiosity and experimentation will be key to finding the right fit for each brand. Curiosity—and courage, Treseder added. “You have to have the courage to try, and the courage to fail. You have to have the courage to apologize when you get it wrong, and the courage to pivot when you need to pivot.”
The discussion ended with the panelists focusing on how AI can help marketers strike the right balance between high value and high volume.
“AI has been a part of predictive analytics, machine learning, measurement—all that stuff isn’t new,” Blank shared. “But what’s exciting to me now is the way it makes everybody so much faster and better, and how it can make our team way more efficient. It’s a whole new ball game.”
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