Can you explain to me what ZX Ventures is?
- Sure.
- And why it makes sense to have somebody who heads up
an important part of the business also become
the chief marketing officer for the entire business?
- Yeah, so, I mean ZX Ventures is our innovation
and ventures arm.
We set up shop in 2015 to accelerate,
a little bit, innovation.
You know, in the past, it was kind of hard
because innovation takes some time
to kind of pay off and to get scale.
And whenever we let innovation compete
with our core business for resources,
of course, it was second priority, you know.
So, we tried to do something different and we just set up
another unit for the company that could really
accelerate, have independent resources,
different people, new capabilities.
But we got to a stage, now, five years later, you know,
the thing got some scale.
And we thought it was a real opportunity for us to go there
and kind of start cross-pollinating between ZX
and our main business and that's why
I'm kind of co-heading both.
- And how important is it that marketing message
is in line with the innovations of the company
and which goes first?
Do you innovate first and then figure out how to market it,
or do you learn from your conversations with the consumer
about what sort of things you need to create?
- So, I mean, today, you need to perform, right?
You have to deliver products that really make a difference
in people's lives because, otherwise, people don't buy
products and they'll feel difference of the products
just based on pure marketing.
So, today, it's very important for you to have innovation,
you know, to create true differentiation with the products
and then market it.
So, I think innovation, in a way,
is a fundamental part of the job today.
What do you think you bring
to the role or to this industry
that you think, in this industry
that's changed, that maybe not everybody else has?
- Sure.
Yeah, I mean, before ZX I was in marketing for a while.
But it's great because ZX, it's all about learning
with startups and with new platforms and things like that.
And, in a way, you know, I think the competitive advantage
for he future is going to be to understand consumers
better than anybody else, create products that address
big consumer needs, and then, deliver it
in a frictionless way.
And that's kind of what we're doing at ZX.
And at ZX, we have like a pretty sizeable
e-commerce business these days.
So, we have a lot of consumer understanding, you know,
consumers voted with their wallet, so e-commerce
is a very good indicator on what works, what doesn't,
and what people want.
And I really think this is kind of the capabilities
that we need in the core business today.
You know, how can we use data
to create data products that really have a differentiation.
And then, use technology also to deliver it
in a seamless way.
So, the consumer has changed a great deal,
not just their behaviors and what sort of products
they're interested in but also the way that
they consume advertising.
- Yeah.
- How are you dealing with that?
- So, this is like a massive shift that we are seeing.
If you take a look at, like, 10 years ago,
you could probably target consumers in 90% of the time
that they are consuming media, right, in general.
And, today, like, there are a lot of massive platforms
and very like high growth platforms that are ad-free, right.
If you think about Netflix, if you think about Spotify,
if you think about YouTube Premium,
you think about WhatsApp.
You know, so, increasingly, I think consumers are spending
a lot of time with platforms that traditional advertising
kind of doesn't work, right.
So, I think, in the future, it's going to be a combination
of advertising with content, you know.
You have to go there and you have to produce content
and deliver value to consumers in a way they're going to
look for it, you know, and not only get interrupted by it.
So, we're kind of trying to do that, you know,
we are working a lot, for example, with YouTube, you know.
Currently, we have some things, great things going on
in Brazil, we're creating content together.
And then, consumers are organically going to the platform
and consuming our content.
- And there has been a shift in the interest of consumers
to focus on privacy.
And how do you think that that's going to affect
the future of advertising?
- Well, I mean, this is very recent, right.
We have a great relationship with Facebook and we talk
a lot about this, and even for them, this is kind of
a very recent change in direction.
I think we will have to see it, how the privacy first
thing plays out but, again, I think to the extent
that you're going to be able to deliver value
to consumers, create content that engage,
provides entertainment to consumers, you're always going
to have the channel.
So, again, the specifics, we'll have to work through
and that's something that we're very focused on
because it will have meaningful implications
but it's very early days.
- And what and how should brands or does Anheuser-Busch,
If and how should brands get involved in social
and political conversations?
- Yeah, so, you know,
here in Cannes people talk a lot about purpose
and there are different definitions of purpose.
A lot of people are talking about social causes
and doing good for the world
and things like that as purpose.
We have a slightly different view on that one.
We think we should do that and I think brands
need to get involved, I mean, there are so many problems
in the world that governments are not going to be able
to solve by themselves, so I think brands and companies,
they have a role to play but I think the most important
thing is that the core business of whatever industry
you are in or whatever company you are in
is actually positive for people and for society
as a whole, you know, so your business needs to have
meaning and needs to impact people in a positive way.
Because, at the end, you know, you spend,
if you have social causes and you have activism,
whatever, this is like 5%, 10% of what
the brand does.
But, I think, consumers are really asking the question,
what is the other 90%?
Your core business, where you really spend the money
and you spend the time, is that good or bad for society?
So, I mean, we are a beer company
and we love that beer is a product
that brings people together.
We think that has a very meaningful role in society
and it's great.
It takes people,
you know, it changes people's lives in a positive way.
- Can you tell me about a campaign where you
took a risk and it really paid off?
- Yeah, so, we had one, it actually won Grand Prix
last year, here in Cannes, a campaign from our team
in South Africa from Carling Black Label.
It was a campaign about domestic violence.
There are a lot of problems with domestic violence
in South Africa.
And Carling Black Label was a masculine brand, historically,
and a lot of people that did domestic violence,
they were kind of using, you know, that they were drunk
as an excuse for the domestic violence.
So that's something that we embraced with the brand
and it said, look, real men doesn't give excuses.
And we went very broad and it was
a super successful campaign and the brand
could really impact the cause.
- And is there a time where you took a risk based on
what you thought was happening with data or something
where it really didn't pay off?
You do so much at the same time
that some things fall in between the cracks
and you don't pay attention to every single execution
and things like that.
So, back in the days when we were in Brazil,
we have a brand, Skol, it's like a lot of fun and things like that
and we were kind of telling people to have fun
during carnival in one of the executions
you know, was saying, you know,
"Leave no at home."
As in meaning, go there and have fun
and seize opportunity and just enjoy and have a great time.
And that was misinterpreted as if there is sexual harassment
or whatever, you should just go with it.
And there was a huge backlash and we had to apologize
but, you know, again, sometimes you try to push
a little bit and it kind of got misinterpreted
and you make mistakes.
- And what have you learned most about consumer trends
or consumer behaviors since working at AB InBev?
- Yeah, so, I mean the market has changed a lot, you know.
I think, in the past, you had kind of a few markets
of millions and it was very easy to kind of
segment consumers and have like a pretty tight
portfolio of brands that address the whole population.
The market is moving from a few markets of millions
to millions of markets of a few.
And I think marketers, they have kind of two options.
One is, they try to make the returns lower.
Good luck with that, right?
Or they can adapt themselves to have a much broader
portfolio and satisfy many more consumers, right.
So, I mean, the good news is that technology is helping
a lot, you know, in personalizing product and delivering
the right product to the right person at the right time.
But it's a challenge, right, so consumers really,
audiences are becoming very niche.
And if you're not ready to cater for these audiences,
somebody else will, so you'd better be prepared for it.
- And what's coming next, either from a marketing side
or from an innovation side that you're most excited about?
I think the barrier
between technology companies and CPGs
or big companies, in general, is getting very blurred.
And this is a great opportunity but also could be
a massive threat, right.
So if we take a look at the life of consumer understanding,
the relationship that big technology companies have
with consumers today is amazing.
Allowed them to create a much better product
to address consumer needs but, you know, it also allows them
to disrupt other industries, right.
So, you take a look at Amazon today.
Amazon has more than 130 products
and they have 100 times more information
than some of the manufacturers of this product.
They have better algorithms and the have the channel, right,
with this consumer, so in a way, I think,
companies in general, they have to be much better
at technology and at consumer understanding
in order to be able to compete in a world
where lines are going to be blurred.
I think the good news that the companies that do that,
they're going to be very well-positioned to compete.
I really believe that probably one of the best things
that happened to Walmart in the past 10 years
is Amazon, right, because it allowed Walmart
to really step up in terms of technology and innovation
and they're doing a great job at it.
Is there a campaign that someone else has done,
doesn't have to be in the last year, but that you felt like,
man, I really wish I had come up with that,
that was such a great idea?
- Yeah, you know, the two companies
that caught my attention this year, of course, Nike,
right, everybody's talking about Nike with Kaepernick.
A very bold campaign.
When you talk about purpose,
and you talk about your core purpose and social cause,
I think the beauty of Nike is that they did both
at the same time.
And that's the magic, you know, they are inspiring
every human being to be an athlete,
and at the same time, they are furthering the cause
for social justice and they did that in a beautiful way.
It was very risky.
Initially, a lot of backlash, right.
But, at the end, I think it was a brilliant move by Nike.
And I like, a lot, the work that Fernando Machado
is doing at Burger King.
The Whopper Detour, I think, for me, was genius.
It's the kind of campaign that we should have thought.
So these, for me, are the ones
that caught my attention.
- Thank you so much. - Thank you.