Of the laziness not fighting for brilliant creative ideas, to pride to believe that one knows everything, going through the envy to want to imitate a success ad.
Fernando Machado made in the Conference Program of the recent Creativity Festival of Cannes a review of different professional bad practices that he presented with the title of “The 7 marketing capital sins.”

Machado, of Brazilian nationality, is one of the best known marketing professionals in the world. His career includes periods in Unilever, Burger King, Activision Blizzard and Notco and, throughout it, has been the head of the client, on the client’s side, of a handful of very notorious and winning campaigns.
It is currently Operating Partner in the Capital Company Garnett Station Partners, from which to advise on the field of marketing to the signatures in which your company invests. It also works with Cannes Lions In academic activities and, he explained, he compiled the list of “Marketing capitals” From the learning obtained in the interviews he has done with great professionals in the world to prepare a marketing course based on the premise that Creativity leads to better results.

His own experience has also fed the content of a talk that, in one of the introductory slides, described as “sermon”. These were his teachings, organized from the canonical list of great sins (although he warned that a license had been allowed).

VANITY

Machado admitted that it was in this first case where he had made a small trap, because vanity is not one of the capital sins. He used it, as he said, to replace Lust -What would have been a somewhat strange option given the context- and defined it like this: “When you think you know more than anyone”. He added that it is a sin that is committed a lot but in which he believes that, personally, he has not fallen just.
“The most common situation in which this occurs”said, “It’s when a new marketing director arrives at a company and that person believes that everything that has to do with the brand can change:” We are going to change the motto, we will change agency, we will change the logo … Everything. ”

Machado pointed out that it seems like a sin because, as he explained, when he has started working for a new brand, he has done so under the premise that the people who were before were very intelligent and capable people, “And that is precisely because I have decided to work for that brand, because before it has been done with it an amazing job.”

In his opinion, it is a mistake to reach a brand and start criticizing it, do without what has been done so far and create everything new. “The first thing one must do in those cases is to try to understand the brand”; And he gave as a personal example of such a process the recovery of strong brand assets – among them, the well -known logo in which the name appeared between the two parts of the PAN bun – which was carried out in Burger King when he was in charge of the marketing area.

LAZINESS

The definition he gave in the case of this sin was: “When you delegate your decisions in research or not fight for brave ideas.” Machado began by saying that he has nothing against the investigation: “Quite the opposite”he added, “What I am against is how some people use research, which is something very different. I like the data because they serve me to demonstrate to denialists that creativity improves business results.”

This sin is where professionals fall that, according to their words, “They use research to save their ass, as insurance policy, as a way to justify their bosses or show that what they think is true, and that is very easy to do; anyone with some marketing experience can get an investigation to throw the result they want.”

Abundant in the matter, Machado added that there is now access to a lot of information and data, that all companies do a similar investigation and that, in view of that reality, It makes sense to blindly follow the dictation of the results of the studies. “If the marketing department is limited to doing that, it is not necessary. The company will suffice the research area, and thus save a lot of money”he said.

The other way of Marketing laziness It is, according to the speaker, not fight for brave ideas. “If you want to do a great creative job, you must be prepared to fight”said Machado, who added that there are those who reproach him to use words like fight or fight To talk about this situation, but it reaffirmed in their relevance: “If you want to bet thoroughly for an idea, you’ll have a fight. I’m sorry. It won’t be easy.”

He commented that hardly in his career his bosses have asked him More creativity: “Normally, the company’s leader has no marketing experience, very few CMOS become CEOS and, in any case, having knowledge and experience in marketing is not synonymous with appreciation for good creativity. CEOS are usually finance, legal, sales … They have no sensitivity to branding or creativity, so you will have to fight for creative quality. I have always told my teams that it was easy to get it. They would need us. ”

GLUTTONY

The situation that the lecturer identified with this sin is “When you expand the brand too much and your essence neglects” And he acknowledged that he had made this mistake more than once.

The propitious scenario to fall is the bonanza of the situation. “When things are going well”Machado explained, “It’s something that is very tempting: let’s launch a premium range, let’s conquer a new target … but in the end the matter has a trap”. And he set an example of his four -year stage in Vaselinethe well -known Unilever brand that this year has collected the Grand Prix of Social & Creator. He recalled how in the first three years things marched very well, with the brand cultivating its expansion within the field of functionality, which is the one associated with the American public. But in the room he threw himself A new product range more linked to the beauty segmentand it was a total failure.

“The problem was not that, because failures occur”Machado commented, “But I dedicated to that launch much of the Proco Budget that I had and the brand’s core, its basic products, they resented.” For Machado, in these cases it must be remembered that “Your essential business will be reduced much faster than your new toy will grow.”

AVARICE

“When you dedicate yourself only and exclusively to the immediate ROI” It was the definition of this sin that the speaker gave, which pointed out that this is something that happens continuously. Showed on the screen a classic funnel that began with “Notoriety” And I was still for “Familiarity”, “consideration” and “purchase” and ended with “loyalty”; And then, another who, according to it, is the one who was in the head the bosses he has had, and that began in “buys” And it continued in the successive phases until ending in “More purchase.”

He commented that all the conversations with those bosses included this question: “Fernando, can you assure me that this will make us sell more tomorrow?”. And his answer was, he said, that if he could ensure it, he would dedicate himself to manufacture and sell the product and would not be working on that company.
“Things do not work in this way. Build a brand, its attributes, its perception, the behaviors of the people towards it, it requires time. It is about finding a balance between the two things, you cannot build a brand if you only dedicate yourself to the short term.”

He referred to this point to the famous article dedicate 60% of the budget to long -term brand construction strategies and the rest, to actions linked to the immediate result.

But “In most companies it is 5% brand and 95% sales. You do not have to fight to reach 60% -40% in your company, you will not achieve it. Strive that the brand percentage grows, even if it is small. The work of the marketing director is to balance the results in the short and long gradually. ”

ENVY

The definition that Machado gave for this epigraph of the talk was: “When your brief is doing what others is doing.” And immediately apostilled: “Frankly, I hate when someone does this.”

He recalled that his first experience in that regard was when making a campaign that became a reference; In his case, the very famous and multipremized “Real Beauty Sketches”for Dove. “Some friends who worked in agencies told me:” Fernando, a client has told us that he wants ‘a real Beauty Sketches’. It is the biggest because Brief’s would give someone. And I have seen many shit briefs: poor finished, complex, inconcrets, nothing inspiring, mortally boring … I could continue listing qualifiers until the time of the presentation is exhausted. I have also done that kind of briefs. ”

Machado’s recommendation is to do due tasks, learn everything possible about the brand and, from there, build something new: “Marketing people must achieve differentiation.”

PRIDE

This sin is committed “When you want to control it absolutely everything”. He referred to the situations in which The marketing director tells creatives or the filmmakers how they have to do their jobwhich is particularly inadequate or ridiculous when it comes to professionals in the very row.

“Why do you hire one of the best filmmakers in the world and then tell him what he has to do”Machado argued. “It allows things to flow, let people work, the creative who is working on your Brief knows creativity a billion times more than you.” As an example of the campaign in which great talents gathered in different areas and the client left each one freedom to give their best version, Machado put “Play it safe”The Monkeys video for the Sidney Opera that won one of the two Grand Prix of Film in Cannes Lions 2024

GONNA

The situation that Machado associates with this sin of marketing, although in reality it is applicable to any situation of life, is “When you let stress interfere with the way you treat others.”

Even admitting that we are all human and that we have our best and most expensive days, and that in the work there is tension, pressure and requirement of results, he recalled that “We must be aware of the way we treat others, be very careful in that regard.”

And this list of serious offenses completed, Machado ended up saying: “We all commit sins, the important thing is to learn from them and advance from there.”