What it takes to build brands people remember

Every year at Cannes Lions, thousands of marketers gather to talk about the future of branding. 

After the Zappi team spent the week listening to CMOs and brand leaders from companies including AB InBev, Kraft Heinz, Mastercard, Mars, McDonald's, KFC, Unilever and more, it was clear that the fundamentals of brand building haven't changed.

The brands growing fastest aren't chasing every trend or reinventing themselves every quarter. They're building distinctive, emotionally resonant brands that people recognize, trust and want to be part of.

Across dozens of sessions, the same ideas surfaced again and again. Here are several lessons on brand building that stood out the most.

The strongest brands don't try to be everything to everyone. They have a clear understanding of who they are and what they stand for.

Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer, North America at Kraft Heinz, argued that understanding a brand's emotional meaning is far more important than simply knowing its functional benefits. He introduced what he called the tattoo test: people don't tattoo products they like — they tattoo brands that mean something to them.

That same idea appeared throughout the week.

KFC Spain described every great brand as having a "canon" (its original story). Before a brand expands into new audiences, new partnerships or new platforms, it needs a foundation people can instantly recognize. For KFC, that means always returning to Colonel Sanders, its secret recipe and the distinctive story that made the brand famous in the first place.

Legacy brands face a similar challenge. As Todd Kaplan noted, marketers are temporary stewards of brands that often existed long before them and will continue long after them. 

The responsibility isn't to reinvent those brands every few years. It's to protect what made them iconic while finding fresh ways to express their identity.

Building off of that first lesson, another one of the week's clearest messages came from marketing professors Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp: 

Distinctive brand assets remain one of the most powerful drivers of long-term growth.

These two don't always agree, but one thing they were very clearly aligned on was the power of distinctive brand assets. They shared how, in reality, consumers don't spend much time thinking about brands. In fact, they may only consciously notice a brand a handful of times each year. But when those moments happen, brands need to be immediately recognizable.

That means using a consistent combination of logos, colors, characters, packaging, sounds and other distinctive assets across every touchpoint.

Gülen Bengi, Lead CMO and Chief Growth Officer at Mars, echoed the same thinking:

"To create an iconic brand you have to build it on strong fundamentals...you need a distinctive brand to stay consistent throughout all touchpoints."

Those fundamentals make brands recognizable whether someone encounters them on TV, TikTok, out-of-home advertising, in-store — wherever you are.

And almost every speaker talked about consistency.

Paloma Azulay, Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at McDonald's, compared brand building to a long-term relationship. After all, relationships aren't built through one grand gesture, they're built through repeated experiences over time:

“Brand love is like a relationship. It takes time, habit and consistency…Consistency is everything. You have to be patient and protect the emotional base you've built.”

Marcel Marcondes, CMO at AB InBev, made a similar point, calling consistency one of the most underrated aspects of branding. 

Brands have identities just like people do, and marketers should think of themselves as guardians of that identity through consistent cues and storytelling.

Perhaps the biggest shift discussed throughout Cannes was about the role brands should play in culture.

Rather than broadcasting messages at consumers, the best brands create opportunities for people to participate.

AB InBev demonstrated this through Michelob ULTRA. Instead of simply positioning itself as a healthier beer, the brand organized beer runs and became part of an active lifestyle community, making the positioning tangible.

KFC Spain offered another compelling example: The team abandoned rigid content calendars in favor of being "always in" the conversation instead of simply "always on." Community jokes became products. Fan comments became campaign ideas. Cultural moments became opportunities to expand the brand's universe rather than interrupt it.

As they put it: 

"Community is not a vanity metric. Community is the engine."

The takeaway? Cultural relevance is something brands need to earn, and it’s worth the effort.

Finally, one of the strongest reminders from Cannes was that memorable brands make people feel something.

Todd Kaplan challenged marketers to think beyond product attributes and instead ask what their brands represent in people's lives.

This isn't a "soft" metric. Building emotional connection creates loyalty, frequency and long-term growth, as well as love for the brand.

As Christophe Poirier, Global Chief Concept Officer at KFC suggested, marketers should consider replacing the word "experience" with "love."

"I like to replace 'experience' with 'love.' When I see people with big smiles, they're just expressing their love for the brand."

And when consumers smile because of your brand, recommend it to friends or proudly wear it as part of their identity, you're no longer competing on product alone. You're building brand equity — consumers’ perceptions of a brand’s value.

The brands people remember know who they are. They show up consistently. They create emotional meaning instead of chasing attention. They participate in culture instead of interrupting it. And they understand that every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce what makes them distinctive.

Overall, these sessions reinforced that the brands who know who they are and make people feel something are the ones who will endure.