At the Lumière Theatre in Cannes, where the global advertising and communications industry gathers each year for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, there is a familiar rhythm to the applause. This year, when Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity named AB InBev as Creative Marketer of the Year for the third time, the applause carried a different weight.
It wasn’t just recognition. It was validation of a system, one that Global Chief Marketing Officer Marcel Marcondes described not as a moment of creative brilliance, but as a repeatable model for creative effectiveness at global scale.
Standing at the Lumière Theatre in Cannes, Marcondes made one thing clear: AB InBev’s ambition is not to win awards. It is to build a machine that consistently turns creativity into business growth, cultural relevance, and consumer connection. And in a category as old as civilization itself, that is beer, that is no small claim.
A mission built on celebration
At the core of AB InBev’s philosophy is a deceptively simple idea: to create a future with more reasons to celebrate.
It is a line that sounds like advertising copy until Marcondes explains what it actually means inside the organization. With more than 500 brands across 50 countries, and one in every four beers consumed globally brewed by the company, AB InBev is not just participating in culture, it is embedded in it.
But scale alone is not the story. The company’s digital transformation has also reshaped its revenue structure, with a growing portion of its business driven by digital and direct-to-consumer ecosystems. The implication is clear: AB InBev is no longer just a brewer. It is a data-driven consumer platform that happens to make beer. And yet, Marcondes insists that none of this matters without creativity as the operating system.
Dream big, be humble
One of the most repeated ideas in Marcondes’ Cannes Lions presentation was also the simplest: dream big, but be humble. It is a paradox that sits at the heart of AB InBev’s creative transformation. Humility, he argued, is not about lowering ambition. It is about acknowledging gaps especially in capability.
When AB InBev began its journey toward becoming “the most creative and effective company in the world,” it did so with an honest diagnosis: it was strong in acquisition and scale, but weaker in brand-building excellence. That admission led to structural change. The company created a global cultural capabilities function, led by Jodi Harris, designed to embed creativity into the operating model rather than treat it as output. This wasn’t a campaign idea. It was infrastructure.
Four pillars define this system:
- First, leadership training focused on how to brief and judge creativity.
- Second, a “brain trust” model where creative work is stress-tested by external challengers.
- Third, a continuous “comfort zone assessment” that forces honest evaluation of creative quality.
- Fourth, structured celebration systems that scale winning ideas globally.
Together, these components form what AB InBev calls its “One AB InBev Way”—a seven-pillar operating model spanning category understanding, portfolio strategy, innovation, and creative execution.
The result is not abstract. In the last five years alone, the company has secured 183 Cannes Lions, making it one of the most awarded marketers globally. But Marcondes was careful not to frame this as creative excess. Instead, he framed it as discipline.
Creativity as business problem-solving
If there was one idea Marcondes returned to more than any other, it was this: creativity is not decoration, it is a tool to solve business and consumer problems.
He pointed to the evolution of brands like Michelob Ultra, positioned around the shift toward healthier, more active lifestyles. With fewer calories and lower carbs, the brand has been reframed not as a compromise, but as a proposition aligned with modern consumer behavior.
The logic is simple but powerful: people are increasingly social and active. Brands that reflect that duality win relevance.
From beer runs to sports partnerships to AI-enabled experiences, Michelob Ultra has become a case study in how category reinvention is driven not by advertising alone, but by behavioral insight translated into product and experience design.
Even large-scale sports integrations—from fan engagement technologies to accessibility innovations in global tournaments are part of this same philosophy: creativity must serve utility.
And nowhere is this more visible than in AB InBev’s sports platform strategy, where brands like Michelob Ultra have become deeply embedded in global sporting culture, including partnerships tied to FIFA World Cup programming and athlete recognition initiatives.
Consistency is the compounding force
If creativity is the spark, consistency is the engine. Marcondes argued that consistency is one of the most underestimated drivers of brand value. In a world obsessed with novelty, brands are often pressured to reinvent themselves too frequently. But AB InBev’s philosophy is the opposite: long-term brand equity is built through disciplined repetition.
He cited Corona as the clearest example. A brand over a century old, Corona’s positioning centered on outdoor living, freedom, and simplicity has remained remarkably stable. That consistency culminated in its 100-year campaign, a reflective creative platform that did not reinvent the brand, but reaffirmed it. The result has been sustained global growth and its positioning as one of the most valuable beer brands in the world.
The lesson, Marcondes noted, is not romantic, it is mathematical. Consistency compounds.
Going beyond advertising: the rise of mega platforms
AB InBev’s next evolution is not about making better ads. It is about making better systems of experience.
Marcondes described this shift as the move from campaigns to “mega platforms”—always-on brand ecosystems built around cultural or behavioral entry points.
For Stella Artois, this has meant aligning with tennis as a long-term expression of craftsmanship, precision, and ritual. The brand’s presence at Roland Garros and Wimbledon is not sponsorship in the traditional sense, it is category storytelling through experience.
At Roland Garros, immersive installations turned the brand into a talking point within France’s most iconic sporting event. At Wimbledon, the “Dressed for Wimbledon” platform pushed integration further, aligning Stella Artois with the tournament’s strict all-white dress code, effectively redesigning packaging and experience to fit cultural context.
These are not one-off activations. They are strategic expressions of brand identity through lived moments.
The ambition, Marcondes hinted, is expansion—taking these experiential frameworks beyond their original geographies and embedding them in global consumer culture.
Technology with a human center
Despite AB InBev’s heavy investment in AI, data systems, and digital infrastructure, Marcondes was explicit about one principle: technology must never replace humanity. Instead, it should accelerate it.
The company’s internal structure, including its in-house agency DraftLine, uses AI-powered insights and real-time cultural monitoring across markets to identify opportunities for brand participation. Every morning, teams analyze conversations across hundreds of markets and languages to detect cultural relevance windows.But decisions, he stressed, are still human-led.
The philosophy is simple: humans start the process, and humans end it. Technology lives in the middle.
This balance allows AB InBev to move quickly without losing emotional intelligence, a critical capability in modern marketing systems.
Trust, partnerships, and the human business
The final pillar of Marcondes’ framework was perhaps the most understated: trust.
In an industry defined by constant agency shifts, consolidation, and restructuring, AB InBev’s position is clear. The real value is not in organizational charts, but in relationships.
He described the company’s agency ecosystem as an “elite squad,” built not on contracts but on continuity, mutual trust, and shared ambition. The names matter more than the logos, he said. The people matter more than the brands they represent.
It is a reminder that behind global systems and billion-dollar brands, marketing remains a deeply human business.
The five takeaways
Marcondes closed his Cannes Lions session with five distilled principles:
- Dream big, be humble.
- Use creativity to solve business and consumer problems.
- Consistency is undervalued but essential.
- Go beyond ads—build experiences.
- Technology enables, but this is a human business.
They are not revolutionary statements on their own. But taken together, they form a coherent philosophy for modern brand building at scale.
The system behind the trophies
AB InBev’s three-time recognition as Creative Marketer of the Year is not, as Marcondes emphasized, the end goal. It is a byproduct of a larger ambition: to build the most creatively effective organization in the world.
In an industry often obsessed with disruption, AB InBev is betting on something different: structured creativity that compounds over time.
Or, as Marcondes put it in Cannes, “We are guardians of brands built to live forever. Our job is to leave them better than we found them.”
At Cannes Lions, that may be the most modern idea of all.
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