This post was created in partnership with Teads

Key takeaways

  • Using data to connect audiences across channels creates more integrated, effective brand messaging.
  • Continually testing new channels is critical to ensuring audiences fully understand a brand’s story and products.
  • Transforming awareness into outcomes requires balancing brand consistency with addressing the needs of specific audiences and platforms.

Audience journeys have become fragmented and unpredictable, making it harder for marketers to reach, attribute, and measure consumers across channels.

During an ADWEEK House Cannes Lions group chat co-hosted with Teads, marketing leaders shared how they are moving beyond siloed strategies to build connected systems that drive real outcomes.

(L-R) Abbott Cancer Diagnostics' Collette Lee, SharkNinja's Dave Kersey, Roblox's Allison McDuffee, Ancestry's Attica Alexis Jaques
(L-R) Abbott Cancer Diagnostics’ Collette Lee, SharkNinja’s Dave Kersey, Roblox’s Allison McDuffee, Ancestry’s Attica Alexis Jaques

Fragmentation across channels

The conversation began with a discussion about the challenges of reaching consumers despite fragmentation across multiple touchpoints.

Dani Cushion, CMO at Teads, said as an advertising platform, her company helps brands and agencies reach consumers across CTV, mobile, and web.

“That connection is important because as there are more screens, you think it’d be easier to reach people, but it’s so much harder to break through,” Cushion explained. “So, a lot of what we do is use the data that we have to make sure that we’re trying to get connective tissue on how to reach people in the right way, so it doesn’t feel so segmented.” She gave the example of running CTV home screen ads to activate on data, capture attention, and drive on- and off-screen outcomes.

Jem Ripley, CEO at Publicis Digital Experience, said that CTV creates a full-circle connection because it has “the ability to actually connect commerce directly to that experience right there at the screen, and the integration of that to whatever content you may be watching or you’re about to see or watch.”

(L-R) Reckitt's Elsa de Guzman de Saint Nicolas, Teads' Dani Cushion, HEINEKEN's Alison Payne
(L-R) Reckitt’s Elsa de Guzman de Saint Nicolas, Teads’ Dani Cushion, HEINEKEN’s Alison Payne

Testing and trying to see what works

Sara Brooks, chief growth officer at BetterHelp, said she uses channel best practices to ensure the story comes to life across all touchpoints, and she can see the halo effect. “We don’t necessarily think about a channel that works the best for us,” Brooks explained. “They all work together.”

Brooks pointed to BetterHelp’s new podcast, Mind If We Talk, as a way to “tell deeper, richer stories beyond just advertising on other podcasts.” She also shared she was excited about using WhatsApp for “incremental audiences and a new type of storytelling.”

On the topic of WhatsApp, Allison McDuffee, global head of brand insights and measurement at Roblox, encouraged brands to test new channels like the messaging service app, adding that it’s important to take chances and be flexible.

“People and brands are willing to get out there and try something new, although it might not be perfect the first time,” McDuffee said.

Dave Kersey, global head of media at SharkNinja, agreed with McDuffee and said that with consumer behavior changing so fast, he regularly tests new platforms.

“I think there’s a lot of power in being able to test and have an organization willing to figure it out, even if the playbook doesn’t exist and you don’t really understand the measurement framework yet,” Kersey explained.

Alison Payne, CMO at HEINEKEN, shared that her brand does a lot of experimentation. She said it has massive international awareness, but conversion is a challenge since the majority of beer is bought offline and the marketplace is highly fragmented.

As an example of the brand’s willingness to try something different, Payne described how HEINEKEN sent truckloads of beer and a film crew to Boston after World Cup fans drank the city dry. “Sometimes you have to just take a little bit of a risk and see what works,” she said.

(L-R) Publicis Digital Experience's Jem Ripley, BetterHelp's Sara Brooks
(L-R) Publicis Digital Experience’s Jem Ripley, BetterHelp’s Sara Brooks

Connecting awareness with outcomes

The discussion shifted to how brands deal with consumers being familiar with a brand but not knowing their product. Several panelists shared their common experiences in this area.

Collette Lee, senior director of consumer marketing at Abbott Cancer Diagnostics, said there’s a gap between the high brand awareness of Cologuard and the lower awareness of what it does for colon cancer screening.

“Being able to connect those two things in people’s minds, we have essentially expanded the channels,” Lee explained. “We use podcasting to tell the story, like why is this important, why do you have to do it, but then also maintaining that reach we have with CTV and TV.”

(L-R) Reckitt's Elsa de Guzman de Saint Nicolas, Teads' Dani Cushion, HEINEKEN's Alison Payne
(L-R) Reckitt’s Elsa de Guzman de Saint Nicolas, Teads’ Dani Cushion, HEINEKEN’s Alison Payne

Attica Alexis Jaques, CMO, U.S. at Ancestry, said much of what she does for the brand is education.

“We put a lot of our marketing dollars in top-of-funnel but also middle-of-funnel as well, so that we can actually inspire, engage, and really start having conversations with our audiences,” she said.

Elsa de Guzman de Saint Nicolas, VP, marketing excellence at Reckitt, shared that her focus is to leverage distinctive brand assets in a very consistent way.

“We are very demanding with ourselves and our brands on what we stand for, and we never deviate from that,” she said. She does, however, adjust brand messaging to the platform or situation where they’re engaging with people. So, while Reckitt’s Dettol brand partners with nurse training institutes in Nigeria to educate about preventing infection at birth, in the U.K. and Europe, the brand partnered with Roblox to help kids understand the importance of killing germs.

Cushion said a lot of her clients are doing a good job of getting channels to work together. “There’s still work to do,” she admitted. “There’s inertia to overcome, and how we actually buy media in separate channels, but the ones that are getting it right see very positive effects.”

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