There is nothing more lethal to a brand than handing over control to a team of quantitative marketers, according to Heineken CEO Jean-Francois van Boxmeer. Brands need a "creative team in house under a CMO," he said.
Meanwhile Heineken's own marketing chief has slammed "vanity" from marketers making assumptions about media channel spend. He also said brands "get the creative that they deserve".
"If you make advertising in a committee then you are dead," said van Boxmeer, speaking at Cannes last week. "It is important to have a creative team within the brand to work with agencies."
Heineken CMO and president of Western Europe, Alexis Nasard, said that brands that failed to demand creativity from their agencies "get the creativity they deserve." If they don't get good work it is because they accepted it, he said.
Nasard, a former marketing heavyweight at P&G, said that the industry should not make assumptions about digital versus traditional advertising and erect barriers between mediums.
"There is a lot of vanity [people saying] 'we are going to stop traditional advertising and go [purely] digital'. That is not going to happen." He said that separation was "totally artificial" because people consumer different media together, he added. "That is the reality of today."
For that reason, while it may be seen through other media, Nasard said that he would "never believe that the 30 second spot is dead."
Brands know they are getting the best out of their creative partners "when they fight within the agency to work on the account," said Nasard.
Story telling cuts through the "data jungle" to consumers that are now "flooded with data ... just getting your head around it is a full-time job", he added.
"There are fads in the world but there is always a residual element to it. We were all born with stories. Story telling travels."
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