Why Mars Wants to Power Human Storytelling with Tech

We thought Cannes Lions 2024 was going to be even more dominated by AI than 2023. And in some ways it was. AI worked its way into the cracks of almost every conversation along the Croisette. But the tech prophets and doomsayers held less sway, because people testing AI’s potential and feeding back on specific use cases were everywhere you turned. “Last year was kind of lurching towards AI,” reflects global chief brand officer at Mars Snacking, Rankin Carroll. He remembers the feeling of the industry. “What does it mean? What's it going to do? There was apprehension. And I think we weren't quite sure what to do with it.”

This year, the mention of AI provoked a more nuanced tone of response. “We're still pretty much at the front end, but I think we're starting to run use cases, starting to try things, starting to actually see some results and output. I think that's been interesting, going from apprehension to application.”

Rankin is responsible for stewarding communication strategies for brands including M&M’S, Snickers, Extra/Orbit, Skittles, Twix and Dove/Galaxy, and technology has been allowing those brands to progress on several fronts.

Driving more personalised experiences is one core focus for Mars, powered by the data insights that AI can put in the hands of brands. “Most in the industry are either talking about or starting to take action on using the data that is growing, and its availability to us for personalisation of experiences at scale,” he says. It’s also a key to “unlocking pathways into a dialogue, two way relationships,” he adds, as well as connected experiences – a flowing relationship between a brand and consumer, rather than unconnected interactions here and there. “The data is flowing through and the experience is cumulative, one after the other. We're starting to prototype and actually build that out.”

The question that much of Rankin’s days are dominated by is, ‘How does technology enable that for good?’. 

But marketing is the business of storytelling, and Rankin reflects another strong current in the chat from the Festival of Creativity this week, that embracing AI should not come at the expense of humanity and the value that generations of this industry has built around understanding people.

Rankin is fascinated by attention, and has been trying to “reconcile AI-powered enablement and amplification of creativity, against what I'm hearing from every creator and every gen z, which is 'I want authenticity. And not only do I not want to be advertised at, I want you to take the time to understand me, understand my community, and I'll have a look at whether or not your brands do make the connection'.” Cool. But at the same time, AI is coming into that engagement. And that doesn't seem very authentic. It's a super artificial, synthetic piece coming against the need for authenticity.”

It’s clear to Rankin which of those sides should be in service of the other, and Cannes felt to be focused on the right half to him. “I think the energy around story got put in the back seat. This year (thank God), story is coming back to the fore. Stories are marketing fundamentals. What's the proposition? What's the value creation for the consumer? Is it clear? Because we can dress it up and personalise it all we like, but if it's not a fundamentally appealing proposition that people perceive as valuable, none of that matters.”

That's the beauty of a real-life event where humans gather in a town on the Cote d’Azur. “It's almost a reaction that at the heart of this industry is humanity and human stories. Stories that resonate emotionally, which people can connect to, retell and share because they're connected. I'm loving that. And that's been really energising and invigorating.

Whether by correlation or causation, the year that the festival introduced its comedy category, humour in the winning work felt like it was “fully back,” asserts Rankin. “There's some wonderful work that makes me feel like I did a few years ago, before we went down a few roads.

“We're trying to find our way through as an industry, and now integrating systems and technology into it. We've integrated enough that the stories can re-emerge – the celebration of humanity and what appeals to your right brain, so we're not so governed by the left.”

This is good for marketing’s role in business in general, he suggests. “That's part of why I think marketing is starting to re-emerge as a leader of growth. Because at the front end of this is the consumer and I think more and more companies understand that ‘why’. This revolution is [based on] more data about the consumer. And we can talk about that openly and freely in demonstrating the value it creates.”

Of course Mars is looking into ways that AI can be deployed to create experiences for consumers. “The bad version of that, it strikes me, is multiplication of assets, almost untethered, in service of I'm not sure what, except more stuff, more messages, and lack of clarity about where to apply it.” 

The uses which hold more credence for him are in service of “precision, productivity, amplification of creativity, where AI will take away low-value, mundane aspects of production or asset management. [...] I think we need to figure out for ourselves and with our partners, who's ready to do that in the right way, and go all in with them. Because as an industry, just because we can doesn't mean we should just explode the amount of content in the world.”

That said, Mars’ snack brands have a vast galaxy of content around them already. People talk about snacks naturally. So opening up to co-creation with fans and communities is something Rankin and his team have been focused on recently. When we meet in the Cannes sunshine he’s just come out of a meeting with a comedy TikTok creator that he found invigorating.

One part of that which Rankin’s thinking about is building processes to make the right choices for co-creation. “Every creator is not for every brand and vice versa. I think that's one insight this year. Right creator, right themes within their community or their audiences, and the right fit as a brand from a value standpoint - what you stand for, what's your meaning, what do you mean to the community as a brand?”

The other aspect is allowing autonomy. “Letting them take it and run with it, because it's gonna happen,” says Rankin. “Starting to let go, finding trusted partners, and saying, 'bring it to your community, have a go and see where that takes you’. Because by the way, you're doing it already anyway, so don’t try to control it.” 

After a week of more nuanced discussions in Cannes, putting AI’s power behind that real humanity is where Rankin wants to take Mars’ storytelling across its brands. “We've been working hard on the system. The energy of a marketing and brand-building department has been around systems. And it's not just digital technology folks, it's everybody in the team trying to work through how we listen more effectively, how we get insight out of what we're listening to, and then how we transform that into an output that remains authentic and adds value for the consumer.”