May the Agentic Force Be With You: What the ANA Masters Inspired Me to Build

Taking heed of another great thinker’s words – this time Peter Drucker, I decided to act with tomorrow’s logic. So I built a Marketing Masters Agent, inspired by the keynotes, exhibit chats and dinner conversations that made Orlando memorable. Here’s the story -- and a cheat sheet so you can build yours too.

Step 1 -- Laser focus on what matters

Before bringing in AI as a trusted co-pilot, it was critical for me to be very clear on what I needed to accomplish, and which obstacles stood in my way. I specified these three outcomes that would make a difference to my success as a marketing leader in the next three months.

(a) The balancing act: Brand + Demand + Fanland

Imagine knowing exactly what content needs to live on exactly which channels and at what investment levels to create a flywheel of profitable growth for your brand. That is the holy grail of advertising - going from Brand: I see it to Demand: I want it and to what I like to call, Fanland: I love it. We rely on distinctive memory, performance signals, and immersive culture to act as one integrated system. My goal was to decode that black box - often and fast.

(b) Link campaign metrics to business metrics -- dynamically

We know that creative doesn’t count until it compounds revenue, margin, penetration, LTV, or velocity. Speed to signal is the new craft --- I needed the Agent to provide me the right signals before the rest of the market caught on. I knew I had to shorten the path from impression to CFO approvals: tag every asset to SKU/offer, bake in incrementality, and pre-commit stop/scale rules. I needed to go beyond CTR - and use payback windows, cohort lift, contribution margin, and creative effectiveness. I needed the Agent to respond convincingly when I asked it to “show me the money!”.

(c) Experiment with AI -- positively, with guardrails

One of the scariest lines I heard at the Masters was when Hinssen shared Churchill’s warning: “If you don’t take change by the hand, it will take you by the throat.” Not one to be intimidated by one of history’s most notable statesmen, I’m approaching AI experimentation with gusto and a tiny bit of apprehension. It was my first rodeo -- as it will be for many of us. I’m betting that optimism plus good process beats fear --and honestly, the curve isn’t that steep anymore; there’s an AI answer for almost everything. If not, speak to an industry expert like I did: fellow P&G Alum, Andrew Swinand, CEO at ITG who said it best “no talk, just build it”.

So I kept the playbook simple: define the job, anchor in brand memory, wrap in governance and pilot small. Eventually I knew I would have to work on AEO (answer-engine optimization) when Agents start shopping for people and bots. But today I was going to keep it very simple - the “crawl” version.

At the camphouse activation during Masters, using Agentic AI to create my personalized Parfum Gift Box. Technology by EveryHuman.

Step 2 -- Feed your Agent with Masters Takeaways

The ANA Masters speakers showcased insights from “the fruit is in the roots” (Pritchard) to the brilliance of the 4 Cs (craft, customer, creativity and culture). (Delhoume-Debreu) - one inspired by Mother Nature and the other by the elegance of diamonds. Metaphors open our imagination to new story structures and dare us to soar higher in our ambitious thinking. As I built my Marketing Masters Agent, I knew I had some of the richest source of wisdom to feed it - an ingenious pool of thought leadership from the industry’s greatest minds. So, I summarized my notes and used one crisp header to capture the learning and structured it based on my top 3 priorities.

Learning by Top Priority

(a) Brand / Demand / Fan-land

From Marc Pritchard’s ‘the fruit is in the roots’ to Mathilde Delhoume-Debreu’s diamond-cut 4Cs -- Craft, Customer, Creativity, Culture -- the Masters offered insights inspired by nature’s fertile soil to its most precious gem.

• Marc Pritchard (P&G): “The fruit is in the roots.” Anchor in product truth and distinctive memory cues; no life-cycles; brand building and creativity compound across years, not quarters.
• Mathilde Delhoume-Debreu (LVMH): Desire endures when Craft, Customer, Creativity, Culture move in concert -- luxury as a system, not a stunt (and sometimes to the beat of Daniel Craig!)
• Todd Kaplan (Kraft Heinz): Brand and performance are one plan; every short-term tactic is a dot in a pointillist painting that must shine through into the same picture. Seurat would be proud.
• Tim Ellis(NFL): Turn fans into co-authors -- culture + participation (hello, flag football) widens the tent and deepens love.
• Don McGuire (Qualcomm): Engineer resonance at passion points so technology crosses into culture.
• Maggie Schmerin (United): Act like a start-up inside a century brand; humanity and consistency rebuild trust, flight after flight.
• Hernán Tantardini (PepsiCo Foods): Creativity is an input to the value chain, not just a garnish on the campaign.
• Yin Woon Rani (MilkPEP): Don’t rent culture -- create it -- relevance follows.
• Nichole Robillard (Red Lobster): The comeback is inside-out: operations, offering, and meaning in lockstep.

Actions to take now:

• List your brand’s three never/always rules.
• Identify one fan-making participation mechanic you’ll test in the next 30 days.

(b) Link campaign to business faster

• Sean Summers (Mercado Libre): An effectiveness obsession -- data × creativity runs the demand engine with feedback lights always on.
• Norm de Greve (GM): Rebuild the marketing OS; AI accelerates, human ingenuity endures over time.
• Kyall Mai (Esquire Bank): Speed needs guardrails, roles, workflows, escalation -- the scaffolding of scale.
• Lara Balazs (Adobe): AI systems should act, not just assist -- personalization with purpose and pizzazz.
• Brian Lesser (WPP Media): Shift from bursts to world-building measured as creative commerce -- media, message, and marketplace compounding together.

Actions to take now:

• Map 3 marketing signals to 3 business outcomes (e.g., attention → qualified leads → revenue contribution).
• Define your weekly “green/yellow/red” thresholds.

(c) Experiment with AI -- positively

• Peter Hinssen: In the Never Normal, act proactively; treat AI as augmented intelligence, not a lottery ticket.
• Shelly Palmer: Put governance first -- model pickers, permissions, AEO (answer-engine optimization), audit trails.
• Melanie Huet (Newell): Build a working AI OS -- insights engine + content supply chain → faster learning loops.
• Nicola Mendelsohn + Haley Kalil (Meta/Creator): Co-build with creators; authenticity is a design ignitor
• Bob Liodice (ANA): Put growth back on top -- less theater, more traction.

Actions to take now:

• Write your 5 AI guardrails (privacy, provenance, parity checks, escalation, opt-outs).
• Choose one high-learning, low-risk experiment to ship this month. This Agent could be one of them.

Step 3 -- Build the simplest Agent

Building an agent can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.  I decided on the simple and quick version. Open a new ChatGPT chat. Tell it who it is and what “good” looks like.

1. Name it. “You are my Marketing Masters Agent -- a safe, helpful marketing coach.”
2. Teach brand memory. Treat your Agent like a brand. Paste colors, logo cues, tagline, tone, product truth, and your always/never rules.
3. Give it your priorities. Provide your Agent with your 3 priorities - mine are outlined as (a), (b) and (c) above. Paste all your Speaker notes and Speaker headlines in (a), (b) and (c) so it can tag outputs and cite ideas.
4. Assign today’s job. “Find 3-5 useful items from the last 24 hours that help with (a), (b), (c). For each: why it matters, one action, and a tag.” Your Agent will feed you the latest insights and structure it to your priorities.
5. Ask for a decisive finish. “End with ‘3 Moves Today’ I can do before close of business.”
6. Run it daily. Rename the chat “Marketing Masters Insight.” Now you are focused on shipping the actions and closing the loop.

That’s the starter version. There are more advanced builds -- connecting analytics, asset libraries, and workflow tools; adding retrieval, scoring rubrics, role-based permissions, and audit trails. If you want the deeper blueprint (governance included), reach out -- I’m happy to share. Nothing is pulling at my throat anymore - I feel the guiding hand of my trusted Agent

Your Move: Take Action Now

Most days my Agent surfaces (a) one brand-demand-fanland improvement, (b) one short-cycle metric lift and (c) one safe AI experiment. It helps me draft a micro-test, names the success metric, and points to the Master Marketer whose thinking inspired it -- Pritchard for brand truths, Kaplan for one-plan discipline, Delhoume-Debreu for immersive culture and Summers for effectiveness obsession. It’s not magic; it’s disciplined experimentation on demand. It’s taping into the 3Cs that Hinssen highlighted as the ingredients of a great leader in today’s AI-powered world -- curiosity, critical thinking and creativity.

I wanted this article to go beyond the well-intentioned conference recaps - inspiring words that make us think but not enough to make us act in the moment. Here is my call to action for you: Build your Agent. Define your 3 must-wins. Feed it the Masters. Ask for “3 Moves Today.” Then do them. Because in the “Never Normal,” mastery isn’t a memory -- it’s a practice, a muscle we need to keep strengthening and pressure-testing. Start tomorrow morning. Better yet, start now. Your throat will thank you for it.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.

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