Would You Trust AI to Create a Cannes Lions Winner?
Two renowned marketing experts. One question. Two completely different answers. Verena Gründel explores why intuition may remain marketing's greatest competitive advantage in the age of AI.
Why Intuition Is Not a Soft Skill
“Would you trust AI to create a Cannes Lions-winning campaign?”
This question led to my most controversial Cannes-moment: I asked it to exactly two people—two highly respected, well-known marketing experts. And both gave completely opposite answers.
One said, in essence:
“Yes, absolutely. Many people here will hate me for saying this. But it’s going to happen—and it’s going to shake up the industry.”
The other explained, roughly:
“No, definitely not in the next few years. Ideas that truly resonate require human ideas, creativity, cultural understanding, and empathy.”
The real question behind it was a recurring topic in many of my conversations in Cannes: How much marketing work should we leave to AI, and how much to data and algorithms? How valuable are intuition and gut instincts of excellent marketers?
An award-winning CMO of a well-known global brand told me at one of the parties: “If my gut instinct isn’t needed, what’s my purpose as a CMO?”
I think he has a point. A great brand strategist understands the target audience, culture, needs, zeitgeist, success factors, channels, and mechanisms. He or she combines this huge knowledge into a superpower. A superpower that, in our data-driven world, is often relegated to a soft skill: intuition.
I’m convinced that no AI tool can replicate this intuition soon.
So why don’t we trust the hearts and minds of these brilliant experts anymore? Instead, we’re turning them into tool managers.
It’s like having Bad Bunny oversee the Spotify playlist at my birthday party.
Let’s put our trust back in the brand experts. They are true profit centers that make our companies successful.
Or to put it in Cannes jargon: Put the human not only in the loop. Put the human in the lead.
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