Big Little Lessons from The Long/Short Term Debate

The Thursday of Cannes Lions is a slightly delirious time. You’ve become a regular at the Reddit deli and you’ve almost certainly got sunstroke. Amongst this melé, I had the privilege of chairing a debate between Les Binet, professor and effectiveness expert, and Adrian Adaramoye, senior marketer at TikTok. 

The debate focused on one of the most persistent tensions in modern marketing: Go big or just keep posting? On one side, represented by Les, we have the argument for scale. The idea that brands are built through reach, mental availability, and long-term memory structures, that effectiveness isn’t always efficient in the short term, and that a certain amount of ‘waste’ is not a flaw, it’s the price of fame.

On the other side, represented by Adrian, we have a world that’s been completely reshaped by platforms, data, and algorithms, where every impression can be optimised, every audience segmented, and relevance is not a nice-to-have, but an expectation. We set out to ask: are these two worlds fundamentally at odds? Or is there a way to reconcile them? 

It’s an interesting week to be writing my reflections on this debate. Charli XCX has just declared the start of ‘anti-marketing’, aka a shift away from spectacle towards something more personal and “less about the projection of scale.” Charli XCX might not be a marketing expert, but then again, she did create one of the biggest marketing moments of the last few years, in the form of brat. This is a debate that isn’t just being had in Cannes with marketing professionals, it’s in the zeitgeist.

So, where did our debate net out? Below are the five take-outs that most piqued my interest. It’s a useful cheat sheet for marketers who want to understand how to deploy each approach well whilst gauging the respective trade-offs.

• Behave big. Les started his pitch with a word of warning: “marketing has a size problem”. Marketing effectiveness data tells us that to grow, brands need to behave big. In fact, Les argued that scale is the most important component in marketing effectiveness. And yet, marketers are obsessed with efficiency, tactics and what Les described as ‘small thinking’. For big brands, behaving big means committing to putting spend behind consistent brand-building activity. But it doesn’t preclude smaller brands from stealing market share with more modest budgets. They need to punch above their weight and find ways to appear a few sizes bigger than they actually are. In short, if you look at the data that’s got us here, bigness is a pre-requisite for marketing success. 

• Is big ‘traditional’? Adrian started his pitch by challenging the ‘old-school’ marketing bias. Platforms like TikTok have fundamentally changed consumer expectations, what consumers engage with and how they buy. To Adrian, the argument for big often defaults to traditional methods of storytelling and media channels like TV, overlooking the uniqueness of social platforms to build relevance, to get closer to communities and individuals, passions and interests. Two interesting angles emerged from this part of the debate. Les argued that modern marketing playbooks need a mix of both ‘traditional’ and digital and social channels, one for reach, the other for ‘top ups’, nudges and reminders to keep brands salient. Adrian challenged this idea, arguing that big can be built through small. Brands can be built through lots of targeted, memorable and community-relevant actions that add up to the feeling of big. I think Charli XCX would agree. 

• Feed the always-on consumer. Platforms like TikTok have fundamentally changed purchase journeys, collapsing the funnel into one or two clicks and making the moment of discover the moment of purchase. Anyone who has bought anything via social on a whim (guilty) knows this all too well. Brands need to build deliberately for this, Adrian argued. They need to capitalise on the always-on consumer and build brands close to the new point of purchase. Neglect ‘the small’, and you diminish your selling power.

• Be coherent, not consistent. To appear big, Les claims that brands need to be in a wide array of media channels, which creates a multiplier effect. In this context, the idea of being a ‘coherent’ brand becomes even more important. This word was put forward as a more enlightened alternative to the word ‘consistent’, and both Les and Adrian agreed on it. Consistent might imply matching luggage, or a brand looking and saying the same thing everywhere. Whilst easier to put into action for marketers, it’s a bit dull, monotone and sometimes jarring to the consumer. The more sophisticated approach is to think about being ‘coherent’ by adapting to the needs, rules and expectations of different media and platforms, whilst staying true to your core. It makes brands feel deeper, more real, more interesting. At McCann we like to think about building enduring brand platforms with a strong message and aesthetic, that have the power to flex to different channels and moments through the right ‘brand body language’. It’s not just what you say, but how you act, the energy you bring to it, and ultimately the unique way you make people feel every time they interact with you, regardless of the channel. 

• Attention is earned, everywhere. Whatever channels you’re building through, one thing both Adrian and Les agreed on was that earning the right to attention is everything. Yes, you need to commit to spending behind your message, yes you need an efficient media plan, but if the content is not engaging (aka impactful, emotional, surprising, useful…) then prepare to pay a dull tax. Attention is a high bar, whether it’s finding the best way to tap into a community mindset on social or building a coherent brand across channels, creativity is the ultimate unlock. Big brands believe in big creative.  

So, go big or keep posting. Leverage scale or make it feel intimate. To me, this isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about forging a sophisticated combination that’s right for your brand. Because scale without relevance can become invisible. But precision without scale can become insignificant. It’s not black and white. It’s not even brat green. It’s your own, unique and coherent brand shade. Or what at McCann we would call, your Truth Well Told.

Mel Arrow is CEO of McCann London