CANNES—When Julia Goldin was looking for her first marketing position, she thought it was the greatest job that one could have. “I felt that it was right at the crossroads of arts and science, right at the crossroads of humanity and business. Where did that go? I think that needs to come back,” the Global CMO of LEGO Group asks in this interview with Beet.TV at the recent Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The CMO Growth Council has been asking the same questions about marketing since its inception at last year’s Cannes event. As a participant in that collaborative initiative, Goldin is looking forward to helping produce “tangible actions” that will benefit individual companies and marketers at large.
“I feel that marketing got sidelined over the last couple of decades and also became somewhat misunderstood and maybe narrowed in terms of what it is all about,” Goldin says.
Among the outcomes from the work of the CMO Growth Council that Goldin expects to see is to create “much more excitement around this industry,” which in turn will help in recruiting talent. “I think it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities for people who are already in marketing but also for the generations of the future.”
The Council “sharpens up” all participants within their respective organizations and collectively, according to Goldin. “I think overall it’s going to create the kind of movement that we need that is going to be much more cohesive and consistent versus everybody kind of doing their own thing.”
Asked by interviewer Joanna O’Connell, who is VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, about specific areas of focus, Goldin cites the role of marketing and how it’s positioned as a profession. This includes education, training and development capabilities.
“What I think our generation of marketers wasn’t super prepared for is the rapid speed of innovation and change coming so fast and being able to learn on the job,” she says. “I think that’s a requirement. We need evolution.”
Embracing change is not only about learning but about how to be adaptive, given the multitude of changes still to come.
“We need to be adaptive to the environment in which we live and now we live in an environment where change is very rapid. Very soon they’ll be talking about AI, they’ll be talking about voice, and very soon they’ll also talking about regulation. Just like we’re seeing right now the importance of privacy and data protection.
“That will all happen and we need to be prepared for that and ultimately we should be driving the right changes. We should also be the ones to protect consumers, not just protect brands.”
How has LEGO benefited from the CMO Growth Council? “For me it’s super interesting to hear what other people are doing,” Goldin says. “It’s much easier to get closer together when you’re aligned against a goal and an issue that is really of value and interest to you and you’re passionate about because it matters to you, it matters to your organization.”
You are watching Beet.TV coverage of the CMO Growth Council Summit in Cannes. This series is presented by Teads. For more videos from our series, visit this page. Please find all our coverage from Cannes 2019 right here.
