Think pieces

Gen Z Doesn't Want Your Brand Story. They Want the Truth.

Speaker Megan Ho addressing the members at the Coffee & Conversation: Understanding and Reaching Gen Z intimate session
Marketers from luxury, FMCG, finance, B2B and agencies gathered for an open discussion on what it takes to engage Gen Z in today's fragmented media landscape. The conversation highlighted the growing importance of authenticity, niche communities and regional cultural influence, alongside practical lessons from brands successfully building trust with younger audiences.

A Practical Guide to Speaking the Language of the CFO

Collaborative meeting in a modern office
Ammunition's Renaye Edwards says the friction between marketers and CFOs stems from mismatched language and suggests seven ways to overcome this to think like a growth operator who partners with, rather than fights finance.

Sharing Mark Ritson's Mini MBA Programmes

Mark Ritson Mini MBA

The Marketing Society is delighted to introduce a new strategic partnership between The Marketing Society and the MiniMBA - created

The Insight Function's Moment: How AI Is Unlocking What Great Insight Can Really Do

Man standing in office above London street
Agentic AI makes it possible for insight functions to surface existing knowledge, work across fragmented data and drive action directly freeing up human expertise for where it matters says Accenture Song's Matt Addison.

The Cannes Review 2026 - The Pre-review

The Croisette in Cannes taken over by Cannes LIONS events
Julian Boulding's interim Cannes Review asks whether our industry's rush for scale has cost us what matters most. His verdict from the Croisette: Relationship Capital is the new competitive advantage.

The Insight - Coming out of Cannes 2026

Insight into Cannes Lions 2026
Highlights and insights from Cannes Lions Wrapped Up with Paul Kemp-Robertson, David Tiltman and Chloe Markowicz of LIONS. The discussions centred on the pulling apart of what is uniquely human and what is uniquely machine, creators as long-term brand builders, and the growing consumer appetite for friction.

The New Golden Age Won't be Built Alone

Mark Given at The Marketing Society Awards

Marketing has a habit of looking backwards. Ask most marketers when the industry was at its best and they’ll point

Coverage from Cannes 2026: Part 2

Event at DEPT Secret Garden in Cannes 2026
The final days of Cannes Lions 2026 brought the week's biggest ideas together: AI as infrastructure, people as the point, and conviction as the quality that separates those who follow change from those who lead it. Our Cannes Correspondents report from the Croisette one last time.

In My Humble Opinion

In My Humble Opinion

In My Humble Opinion is our podcast series with our friends at Publicis Groupe UK, giving marketing leaders a safe

Coverage from Cannes 2026: Part 1

Siew Ting Foo on stage with Sir Martin Sorrell and BYD's Stella Li
Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2026 opened with a question that refused to go away all week: as AI becomes more capable, what becomes more valuable about being human? Our Cannes Correspondents report on different sessions, stages and conversations and bringing the best of it back to our Members.

Cannes taught me this: the future of marketing belongs to the next generation

Cannes Brand Marketer Academy
Some people will tell you Cannes Lions hasn’t moved fast enough. That may still be true on parts of the Croisette, or in the bar at the Carlton, but it wasn’t true in my classroom. Lex Bradshaw-Zanger shares his insight from Brand Marketer Academy.

Connecting with China's cozy communities

Cosy Communities
Burnout, economic pressure and digital fatigue are reshaping daily life for Chinese youth. Today, cosy, low-pressure spaces such as craft circles and dazi buddying are making connection more modular, interest-led and easy to step into – less about commitment, more about emotional regulation.

TV Isn't the Problem. Our Metrics Are

Group Picture taken at the 'Is TV Dead?' event by The Marketing Society in Hong Kong
The idea that TV advertising is a dead medium remains popular simply because digital platforms make it incredibly easy for cautious marketers to track immediate actions. In a challenging economic climate, the temptation to rely on instant metrics is understandable. However, real-world data from Uni-China Group shows that relying entirely on easily trackable digital data damages long-term business growth. Shifting budgets exclusively to low-attention digital formats costs companies billions in lost revenue compared to high-attention environments like TV.

Is TV Dead? We've Been Asking the Wrong Question

Graphic promoting an event titled "Is TV Dead? We've Been Asking the Wrong Question", featuring a vintage television alongside a modern streaming TV to illustrate the evolution of television and media consumption.
For more than a decade, marketers have debated whether television is dying. After moderating The Marketing Society Hong Kong's Uncomfortable Conversations: Is TV Dead? panel, I came away convinced we have been asking the wrong question. Television isn't dead. Consumers have simply changed how they consume video, moving seamlessly between broadcast television, streaming platforms and digital video.

Is TV Dead? The Better Question Is Where It Has Gone

A panel discussion pic from the recently held 'Is TV Dead?' event in HK

The Marketing Society session I participated in asked a familiar question: Is TV dead? I don’t think that is the

What Customers Want Now: Trust, Relevance and Authenticity

Guests from a recently held Changemakers Club Breakfast in Hong Kong

For a recent Changemakers Club, Prophet partnered with The Marketing Society to host a group of marketing leaders for a

AI counts goosebumps. Humans cause them

Department B The Human Advantage in an AI Driven World
The second in our series explores emotion, perhaps the most fundamental human advantage of all. AI can read emotion, detect sentiment and measure reactions, but it cannot create feeling. Drawing on behavioural science, this piece argues that emotional significance may become one of the scarcest and most valuable assets in an AI driven world, and asks leaders whether their organisations are designing memorable emotional moments or merely efficient journeys.

Navigate: Now & Next 2026 Dubai

Navigate: Now & Next 2026 Dubai
Highlights and insights from Navigate: Now and Next 2026 Dubai. Building AI capability, not renting it. The discussions centred on listening before creating, with social intelligence, agentic operating systems and brand memory identified as the foundation no tool alone can replace. The emphasis was on personalisation over averaging, premium environments outperforming generic reach, and the traditional funnel giving way to single-moment, creator-led journeys, with marketing success increasingly dependent on judgement and structure rather than the technology itself.

In a world where everyone has AI, what becomes valuable?

Navigate: Now & Next 2026 Dubai
Reflecting on Navigate Now and Next Dubai, Noura Haggag argues AI makes execution easy but scales whatever you give it, including poor positioning. As building gets simpler, judgement and market context matter most.

Average Just Became AI. Excellence Didn't

Navigate: Now & Next 2026 Dubai
Reflecting on Navigate Now and Next in Dubai, Neda Lazic argues AI makes access easy but not excellence: trust, judgement and storytelling remain the real differentiators, and marketing has always just been matchmaking.

Where is your brand’s AI signal leading to?

Navigate: Now & Next 2026 UAE
AI adoption is no longer in question. Anismita Ghosh writes how Navigate Now and Next Dubai showed having tools is not enough: structure, not technology, decides who turns signals into fast action and who stays stuck theorising.