S3 Ep33: The Cannes Sessions with James Hurman and Jimmy Knowles

Another two part episode to conclude our Cannes Sessions. First up is James Hurman, founder of Previously Unavailable and Co-Founder of Tracksuit and he is followed by Jimmy Knowles of Canva.
Part OneJames Hurman returns as a guest to That’s What I Call Marketing, we met to discuss his book Future Demand, which is a great read I would highly recommend and I wanted to catch up with James to chat about how Future Demand has really captured the imagination as an important way to reframe conversations. We chat about James’s presentation at Cannes carried out by Tracksuit and presented alongside TikTok and James explains the implications of this research and how the study concluded that brand awareness significantly impacts growth efficiency and conversion rates, which was consistent across both Amazon and TikTok. High brand awareness correlates with better performance marketing results, emphasising the importance of building brand awareness to sustain profitable business growth. I also ask James his views on Mark Ritsons views on smaller brands remaining small, James counters that with the right strategy, small brands can indeed evolve into large brands, albeit with successive and creative efforts. The conversation touches on the critical role of educating finance and venture capital communities on the value of brand-building, emphasising the need for data-driven approaches to justify marketing investments. They stress the importance of aligning marketing strategies with financial metrics to gain broader organisational support. The discussion wraps up with reflections on the role of creativity in marketing acknowledging that while brand-building efforts must be measured and justified, creativity remains a powerful tool for driving business growth and engaging audiences.
Part TwoJimmy Knowles heads up experiential at Canva. Now Im a bit of a Canva super fan, I love the product, I am able to do so much because of it that I truly would not be able to do if I wasnt using it. So I was really looking forward to meeting Jimmy and talk about the Canva rocketship and its 10 year overnight success. And then get to talk about the now infamous Canva Create Rap that Jimmy and the team created to launch their enterprise product. It says a lot about the culture of Canva that they chose a rap battle to launch an enterprise product, it got massive pick up, something most product launches cant say. Great to get an insight into how Canva thinks about these things, its definitely a disruptive product and they think about continuing to disrupt the market.
PART ONE00:32 Discussing Performance Marketing01:24 Insights from Tracksuit's Research03:19 Brand Awareness and Conversion Rates05:06 Challenges for Small Brands06:42 The Importance of Creativity in Marketing09:19 Educating Finance on Marketing17:53 The Rise of AI in Marketing23:35 Dissecting Scott Galloway's Marketing Views24:43 The Power of Advertising in Tech Giants25:28 The Risks of Misleading Marketing Advice
PART TWO27:37 A Conversation on Canva's Growth29:49 The Canva Experience: Empowering Creativity34:23 Canva's Global Strategy and Local Adaptation39:51 Innovative Product Launches: The Canva Way50:01 The Future of B2B Marketing with Canva
The Cannes Sessions are brought to you by Freedman International.