Photo courtesy of Google.

With the annual Cannes Lions Creativity Festival wrapping up, Samsung’s Marc Mathieu had a busy week surrounded by 16,000 of his marketing industry peers. Here are some topical highlights and quotes from his various media engagements:

People-First Technology

Mark was featured on a panel titled Wake Up With The Economist where he reinforced Samsung’s “tech for good” focus.

“The idea is to not only create products and develop technology that enhances humanity and peoples’ daily lives, but also be guided by a marketing principle that is focused on our consumer and not merely tech for tech’s sake. We have an ethical responsibility to our consumers and humanity to ensure that we pursue innovation in a thoughtful and meaningful way, while delivering on technology that has a positive and not adverse effect on our human experience.”

Impact Over Impressions

Marc joined The Economist editorial team in collaboration with Spotify to participate in the Culture Shift content series. Together they discussed the intersection of culture and technology, and affirmed the importance of establishing brand trust and purpose.

“Consider this: The average consumer switches screens 21 times an hour. They’re exposed to as many as 10,000 brand messages a day. This is a brave new world for marketers. At Samsung, we believe that when you manufacture products, you have a responsibility for the usage of those products and similarly when you do marketing you have a responsibility for the impact of that marketing.”

Great Power, Great Responsibility

Marc delivered a keynote presentation on the official Cannes Innovation stage titled, “Great Power, Great Responsibility: Bridging the Gap between Technology and Humanity.” He was joined onstage for the second half of his session by the CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki.

Susan and Marc reflected on how we’re living in a time of infinite possibility for advertisers reaching people on mobile, but with that comes a responsibility to harness scale, innovation, insights, and expertise as companies to operate in service of humanity.

Photo courtesy of Google.

Net Positives

Marc also sat down with Debbie Weinstein, VP of YouTube/Video Global Solutions in a ‘Lightning Talk’ Series produced by Google. During their conversation Marc recalled a moment of revelation during Cannes last year where he was having lunch with a few other CMOs, executives and advertising types, as well as Christine Lagarde, Head of the IMF.

“There we were, some of the most creative minds in the world, and rather than coming together to solve our collective challenges, we were drinking champagne.”

Marc noted that it’s not enough to think as industry leaders. He encouraged the audience to think as industry stewards and make a positive societal impact.

Deliver On Promises

On the last day of the Cannes Festival, Marc joined his CMO peers at a Wall Street Journal and Forbes Luncheon. He closed out the eventful week with a simple reminder to his fellow industry leaders:

“Innovating for the betterment of humanity is our collective, ethical responsibility as brands, marketers and advertisers. Let us not forget that we can multiply our positive impact by delivering on this promise together. And there’s never been a more important time to do it.”