In the past, consumers spent most of their personal time researching their purchases. First, they had to listen to the brand. Then they had to learn about the product to see if it was worth it and finally they went to the store to buy it. But that all changed with social media advertising, explains Claudine Cheever, Amazon's vice president of global brand and marketing.
“Obviously everyone's talking about artificial intelligence, but I think they're also talking about breaking the funnel. The idea is that customers very regularly move from being familiar with a brand to considering and buying,” says Sherry.
He sat down in the Variety studio introducing Canva at Cannes Lions to discuss the ongoing changes in how people use products and how social media is massively impacting instant shopping.
"When you think about things like consumer-facing marketing and all the social marketing and social commerce, for a lot of people it's 'see, buy,'" Cheever explained. "So I think everybody is trying to figure out how to navigate this changing customer journey and obviously what role technology plays in that process."
He sees this break in the traditional consumer chain as a good thing because it allows consumers to buy what they want instead of being sold products that brands think they need based on their demographics. Instead, he hopes technology can capture the trends people are looking for or browsing so they can better decide how to market themselves as individuals.
“Personally, I don't like being sold at my age. I'd rather be oversold for my mood or the last thing I bought than to be told over and over that I've reached a certain age,” Cheever explained.
But sometimes, this extra awareness in advertising can make consumers anxious. "Sometimes you get [ads] directly related to something that's a little scary," he said. "So I think it's one of those things where I don't see AI writing my Super Bowl ad, but helping my media plan work better and making my ad more relevant."
A company like Amazon always needs people to write ads, like their recent Super Bowl ad about a family and their dog. "The trick is that they say, 'Oh, we'll take another dog for a dog.' And that aha moment is how we manage our own culture," Cheever said.
In the future, he hopes to see a smooth interplay between analog advertising technologies and strategies
“I think in five years you will see a better union between technology and creativity. I hope it really works," he said. "And no doubt technology will replace a lot of mundane and mainstream creativity, but there's still a subjective role and people are paying attention to what's obviously different and what they haven't seen before. "
