Gain Theory's Manjiry Tamhane & Lions Innovation at Cannes

Although Cannes Lions is widely known as a festival for celebrating creativity, ultimately the festival aims to identify and award the best and most brilliant marketing executions.

Data, insight, analytics and strategy have always played a central role in informing and empowering the creative execution of these campaigns. This year, Cannes Lions has launched Lions Innovation as a celebration of the groundbreaking campaigns that grow from this data and insight capability.

Lions Innovation takes place on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th of June. The event aims to build a bridge between the insights that data can bring and the big ideas and campaigns that define brands in the modern world. Little Black Book caught up with Worldwide COO and CEO EMEA at Gain Theory Manjiry Tamhane to discuss the upcoming event.

LBB> How is Gain Theory involved? 

Manjiry Tamhane> Gain Theory is one of the original founding members of Lions Innovation.

Throughout Lions Innovation, senior experts from Gain Theory’s global team will be on-hand to meet with brands to discuss challenges and offer advice on how they can better capitalise on data, analytics and tech to connect with consumers. As part of our involvement, we will be holding drinks on its stand on Thursday 25th June, as well as running a number of VIP lunches with senior business decision makers.

LBB> Who is Gain Theory 

MT> Gain Theory is a global marketing foresight consultancy that focuses on understanding tomorrow to enable marketers to disrupt today. By fusing data, insight, analytics and tech, we enable brands to better understand their consumers, predicting their behaviour to make faster, smarter business decisions.

Combined with WPP’s intellectual capital in media and marketing, Gain Theory has a proven track record in giving Fortune 500 clients the power and confidence to make more informed marketing decisions that generate greater business profit.

Real-time, near-time and future-time; Gain Theory pushes the predictive possibilities to offer new foresight. This foresight helps marketers understand consumers and the marketplace in such a way that they know what the next move should be, and can make this move with a confidence founded in a reasonable and quantified expectation of what the result should be.

LBB> Why are Gain Theory Founding Members of Cannes?

MT> Gain Theory has taken a founding member role in Lions Innovation to help showcase how data and analytical expertise and capability can empower and enhance every brand’s creative output, opening up new, exciting possibilities from more ambitious big ideas to better integrated campaigns. Global in its outlook and operation, Cannes is the perfect fit for Gain Theory, offering a platform where the consultancy can help the world’s best brand marketers make sense of the data and technology spheres that often throw up more challenges than solutions. The Lions Innovation festival is the perfect opportunity for brands to tap into new methods and ways of doing things that will help give them the competitive edge – an outlook that is central to Gain Theory’s offering and service delivery. 

LBB> A big part of Lions Innovation is looking at the overlap between data and creativity. In your eyes, how is data affecting creativity right now?

MT> For a long time data was often seen as the killer of creativity (logic vs. magic). But we believe that data, when used correctly, has always been a way of helping advertisers take calculated risks and enable them to learn from anything new that they are doing. The truism behind the data vs. creativity debate is that data actually makes creativity stronger.

We’re seeing creativity adapt as a result of data – creative responding to real-time developments and consumer interaction, such as the British Airways look up campaign; that is all enabled by superb data analysis and insight throughout the planning and execution of the campaign. By informing the creative thinking, giving it real insight to build upon, data and analytics enhance the power of both the idea, and how it is then delivered, to ensure it really connects with consumers and drives bottom-line returns for brands.

LBB> Is the ad industry making the most of creative data? What could it be doing to further use it better?

MT> There have been some real advances in how data is being incorporated into creative campaigns. But as technology evolves and the platforms we interact with as consumers change, so does what’s on offer from a technology, data and insight point of view. This will ensure that there are always new, exciting possibilities for what can be achieved from creative data.

One of the really exciting things about the industry at the moment is the business opportunity that can be unlocked by striking the perfect relationship between data and creativity.  Combining the two disciplines allows us to create content that is more personally relevant and memorable for each individual, creating stronger connections than ever before. Not only does this change consumer behaviour, but it makes brands perform stronger – the real goal for any marketer.