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Their remits and responsibilities seem poles apart, but Guzman y Gomez global CMO, Lara Thom, and Uber CMO APAC, Andy Morley share strikingly similar views on the importance of culture, CMOs aligning personally to company values, brand-led strategy, and bold, progressive marketing that grabs attention and strikes the right cultural chord. It’s surprising really. Thom has her hands full with near-term growth, global expansion of a brand still challenging the QSR status quo and a recent IPO. Morley meanwhile, has his sights set on the longer-term brand horizon and reframing two mature businesses for what’s next. These very different marketing operators were in the studio for the latest CMO Awards winners podcast episode after being unilaterally recognised by judges for demonstrating marketing effectiveness in spades. Morley came in #6th in this year’s CMOs of the Year rankings (the highest ranked male this year, both joked), while Thom was the inaugural CMO Awards #1. The dynamic, sometimes combative but respectful conversation centres around what it takes to make marketing effective, drawing from Thom and Morley’s winning CMO Awards submissions plus career learnings. What both also share is a very timely reminder that the role of marketing has to adapt if it’s to achieve the same outcome every CMO is ultimately looking for: Delivering growth and market share through effective marketing.  Both firmly hold themselves to commercial account. “At some stage, marketers got hold of a whole bunch of metrics and were able to kind of put some twinkly stars in the sky and go and say, Look, reach impressions, brand awareness graphs that don’t mean anything,” Thom says. “But the real accountability and the real effectiveness of an awesome and great marketer is actually in sales.”That by no means impinges brand and creative aspirations. “I’ve always said and believed that you can build brand and revenue at the same time,” Thom continues. “Anyone that says this is a brand campaign that’s not designed to drive sales, is wrong and lying, and it’s not working. All brand campaigns should elevate brand awareness, and that equates to sales. End of.”How marketers maintain an offensive, not defensive, position is another priority for both CMOs. “There are a number of brands that have more restaurants than us, so we’re still in an offensive position, where that hunger and we’re striving to get there,” Thom says.  By contrast, Morley and the Uber team are in a very different space where the business is now well established, and in a market leadership position looking at what is next. It’s come after three years of successful work to transform and evolve what Uber Eats brand stands for and the power of its ‘Order almost anything’ brand positioning and creative platform. Morley is now thinking about Uber’s core rideshare business and where it goes next. “I think the reframing of what your category is, is the most important thing for our position,” Morley says. “We’re not just trying to maintain our share or just defend what we’ve got within rideshare or through delivery. We’re saying actually, what’s the bigger picture that we can go on? In the mobility space, it’s the private car. We are going harder on how we build more use cases away from the private car. It’s generally better for the consumer’s wallet, and that is a much bigger fish for us to go after.”

Cannes was heaving with influencers striking deals, but the message from top marketers, academics and consulting firms was consistent: Go back to fundamentals on brand, embed brand at the heart of business, then execute with consistent creative excellence to drive outsized financial returns.Mark Ritson landed that message most emphatically via 10 years worth of Effie data analysed by System1. In short: Do really good work, put enough money behind it, don’t change it; grow more.CEOs like Gap Inc’s Richard Dickson are codifying brand to drive business decision-making – and it’s working. Other business leaders remain unconvinced. Hence EY Parthenon’s Karen Crum putting brand and creative investment on the corporate risk register, just like plant, equipment and supply chains. She’s mapped 20 years worth of Fortune 500 filings that show brands looking beyond negative brand risk and investing to maintain brand relevance and value are “more profitable and stayed in the Fortune 500 longer”. Crum’s new paper unpacks how marketers can help articulate that risk in language that will land with the C-suite.Tassal Chief Commercial Officer Matt Vince – also the firm’s Chief Risk Officer – said it maintains corporate risk registers for both brand and marketing after 20-years as an ASX-listed business prior to acquisition by Canada’s Cooke Inc. Crum’s paper, he says, resonates deeply, while Tassal’s rigour in building brand –doubling marketing ROI on a flat budget – has seen Cooke’s global CEO fly into town: “The opportunity for us is to start leading [marketing] from a global perspective.” Next, he’s mulling how to embed a creative measurement system, as cited at Cannes by the likes of Nestlé as key to enabling creative growth gains and Grand Prix wins. But Vince is also thinking about influencers after meeting Seal at a TikTok event – and says TikTok “has some amazing things coming in their pipeline”.Amid divergence on whether marketing’s fundamentals still apply within a platform-dominated world, Suncorp’s Mim Haysom backed the call to return to basics on distinctive assets – because they resonate in all channels. “We can get obsessed about single channels. But nobody builds brand and marketing plans like that. You look at the whole ecosystem of your brand.”But Haysom acknowledged influencers are having a “profound impact” within that ecosystem. “If brands are thinking that it’s a flash in the pan they’re greatly mistaken.” Which means working through another set of risk management: relinquishing full control of content. Here’s their take-outs and take-homes from Cannes 2025.