Every year at Cannes Lions, the advertising world takes stock of itself—what’s working, what’s not, and what it’s pretending not to notice. Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder breaks down the industry’s complicated relationship with AI; weighs in on the hottest and most overrated campaigns of the year, including sharp takes on Nike, Adidas, and Starbucks; and explains why the path from CMO to CEO is suddenly the most interesting career move in business.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
So what’s the vibe [at Cannes] this year? What are you feeling? Are people excited? Are people anxious?
I think people are really excited, but there’s also a lot of anxiety about what’s going on. Some people are feeling clear. Some people feel like there’s a lot of chaos. So it’s a tale of two cities.
Is the chaotic feeling about the world? Is it about AI and the business? Where’s the chaos landing?
I would say the chaos is a little bit about the world, but a lot about AI. I feel like the chaos around AI is more rampant than it was last year.
You were mentioning that you went to the World Cup with your son. And since we’re here, I wanted to ask you about the World Cup ads. Is that part of the conversation you’re hearing?
It’s part of the conversation. And I have to tell you, I’ve been hanging out with some CMOs—some are Team Nike, some are Team Adidas.
Yes.
I want to give both brands a lot of credit because how do you enter a conversation in a very culturally relevant way? I think Adidas approached it from a nostalgia perspective, and they really nailed it, and they created so much meaning. They focused on the semantics. They leaned into, I think, the lost art of deep storytelling, and it really paid off. And Nike took a different approach. They went a little more 360-degree.
A little zany.
A little zany. And they captured a lot of attention. They drove a lot of conversation. So both brands did a really great job. And in the spirit of heated rivalry at the World Cup, people are taking sides.
So you talk about ads being relevant, memorable, and ownable. Now, both of those ads are definitely memorable, and they’re relevant. Are they ownable? Could Adidas have done the Nike ad, and Nike have done the Adidas ad?
I actually think they are ownable. Adidas did what Adidas does best: detailed storytelling. It’s a hallmark of the brand. And I have had the opportunity to work closely with Adidas. When I was CMO at Carbon, we had a big partnership with Adidas. I’ve seen how they think, and they understand what their customers love, and they leaned into that.
At Cannes Lions, we saw them win two Grand Prix in the same day. Even that campaign they did, the Adidas Oasis campaign, is very similar in terms of style and ownability, which is: Let us lean into original storytelling. Let’s not try to zag because everybody is zagging. Let’s zig and do our own thing.
And for Nike?
I think Nike is about marketing at the speed of culture. That is what they do. . . . Look at the . . . marketing that Nike did at the Knicks game, where they were able to take user-generated content and piece together beautiful creative that really had everybody feeling that New York spirit, and they did it in real time.
I almost think the brand embodies that idea that if you have a body, you’re an athlete. They take that elite-athlete mindset in terms of how they try to move and the speed at which they try to move. So I think the Nike work was very true to their brand.
Yeah. Although Adidas got Timothée Chalamet, who’s a Knicks fan. So they both got to play there.
They both got to play, exactly. And I love me some Timothée Chalamet. I’m a Dune fan. Once the ads started, I was like, okay, all right. Don’t ask me what team I’m on. I like both brands, but if I had to pick, it would be Adidas.
Last time we talked, you spoke a bit about opining with a spine, and how important and effective that is. In the environment of change we’re in right now in 2026, is that harder?
It is risky, but the risk is worth it when what you are opining on is core to your business strategy, and you can back it up with your spine. Because there’s so much sameness. The unfortunate thing about what is happening is AI is raising the floor, but it is human ingenuity that’s going to vault the ceiling. And there isn’t enough emphasis being placed on that human ingenuity and human creativity. But I’m a rigorous optimist.
So I think we are in the golden age for marketers and creatives who have excellent taste, are willing to master these tools, know when to use them, but, most importantly, have the discernment to know when not to use them. And I think when you have that down, the clarity and the peace come in the midst of the chaos.
The conversation last year here was about how AI is going to crush all the creativity, or people were worried about that. And this year it’s a little more about maybe AI shouldn’t be applied to the creativity part of the business or the product. It should be applied to the process a little more.
I think so. When you’re using AI, it is operating in two dimensions. There’s the syntax and there’s the semantic. When you’re using AI in the syntax, it can really address processes and help. But when you want to focus on meaning and the semantic, that is where you want to make sure the creative is still in control of the art.
AI is here to serve humanity. Humanity is not here to serve AI. And I think the brands that are willing to say that unapologetically are building trust with their customer bases.
The role of the CMO is changing in some organizations. There have been some studies I’ve seen recently that show CMOs are more relied on by CEOs than they used to be for high-level decisions. Where should CMOs sit in business strategy?
I think if you’re a business that wants to be successful, your CMO should have a real seat at the table and should be empowered to win, because you are absolutely seeing the best companies treat their CMOs like strategic partners. They’re not seeing them just as marketers, but as enterprise-wide business leaders. And you are seeing that path from CMO to CEO. It is happening at a much faster clip than it was even just five years ago.
And the reason for that is because as CMOs our remits are so broad. We have to think about everything from the events and experiences and the activation at Cannes all the way to the go-to-market strategy, the revenue accountability, the pipeline creation, and the technology stack. We are on the forefront of the implementation of AI internally. And so having a CMO have a real seat at the table gives the C-suite and the company a competitive edge and advantage.
What has tended to happen sometimes is, when things don’t go well for a business revenue-wise, the CMO gets blamed. And when things do go well, the business unit takes the credit. How important is it for CMOs to have control of their own source of revenue for the business?
I think it’s really important to have that revenue accountability, especially for areas of the business where marketing is in first chair, like digital business. For example, at Autodesk, I oversee our digital business. It makes sense that it sits with me because it begins and ends with marketing.