SIGNALS
Most Marketers Value Creative Excellence. Few Deliver It Consistently.
Why the industry’s challenge may not be creativity itself—but the systems required to scale it. Most marketers believe creativity drives growth. Far fewer believe their organizations consistently deliver it. That is one of the most striking findings from new research by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Cannes LIONS, released as the industry gathers […]
The Grumpy Innovator: Why Good Ideas Don’t Always Win
Costas Papaikonomou on disruption, decision-making, and the overlooked power of the obvious. Innovation has become a kind of corporate reflex. When growth slows or markets shift, the instinct is often the same: disrupt, reinvent, transform. But according to Costas Papaikonomou, an innovation expert, entrepreneur, co-founder of Una Terra, and author of The Disruption Fallacy and […]
Marketing Is Moving Beyond the Message
IN PRACTICE | The Cases Shaping Marketing Now What five award-winning campaigns reveal about the future of marketing. At first glance, these examples seem unrelated. Different countries. Different categories. Different audiences. Different objectives. Yet together they reveal something important: Marketing is moving beyond the message. Across this year’s highest-scoring Internationalist Award winners, the most innovative […]
The Hidden Cost of Global Marketing
The Big Idea Is Only as Strong as the System That Delivers It. Global brands have never invested more in creating big ideas. Brand platforms are centralized. Creative systems are increasingly sophisticated. Campaigns are built to travel across markets, formats, platforms, and channels. Strategy is aligned. Guidelines are documented. Master assets are approved. And yet, […]
Trusted Enough to Become the Answer
TRENDSETTERS | Martyn Etherington, CMO of BMC Software. There was something refreshingly grounded about speaking with Martyn Etherington recently. At a moment when much of the marketing conversation around AI feels dominated by acceleration, automation, and speculation, Martyn’s perspective was strikingly simple: the future may belong less to louder brands — and more to trusted […]
THE EDIT | When Proof Becomes the Concept
Some brands are still focused on visibility. Others are beginning to recognize that visibility alone is no longer enough. In an environment shaped by skepticism, overload, and constant exposure, marketing increasingly faces a different challenge: not simply getting attention, but demonstrating credibility, usefulness, transparency—or even self-awareness. This week’s examples from Shein, a Finnish bakery brand, […]
When AI Becomes a Cost, Not a Capability
Most organizations don’t struggle with a lack of ideas.They struggle with the discipline to turn those ideas into decisions. AI has amplified that gap. What begins as exploration too often becomes a permanent state—an ongoing series of pilots, tests, and initiatives that never quite reach production. Investment continues. Progress is reported. But meaningful outcomes remain […]
Marketing Makes a World of Difference: Where Purpose Becomes Practice
For years, purpose has been one of marketing’s most discussed—and often debated—ideas. But as expectations rise, the conversation is shifting. The question is no longer whether brands care.It’s whether that care is built into how they operate. The most effective partnerships between companies and nonprofits don’t sit alongside the business. They integrate capabilities, systems, and […]
When Great Ideas Don’t Survive Scale
The most dangerous moment for a great marketing idea is not when it is created. It is when it is scaled. A global idea is approved. The strategy is clear. The creative platform is strong. The brand team is aligned. Then the idea enters execution. It is adapted, resized, translated, rebuilt, localized, versioned, reviewed, approved, […]
The Revenue Brands Keep Overlooking
Why the 50+ opportunity is still underestimated—and what’s beginning to change … The 50+ audience is described as the most valuable consumer segment in the market (Nielsen). And yet, it rarely shows up as the starting point for growth. Not in strategy. Not in creative. And not even in how success is measured. The issue isn’t visibility. […]