Team x’ CCO Tilman Gossner on Creativity, Crisis, and the Future of Luxury

“I initially wanted to take a step back from awards this year, to be honest. I was surprised when they reached out and asked me to join the jury,” Tilman Gossner says with a laugh. His smile radiates through the video call from Germany.

Tilman is the global chief creative officer (CCO) at Omnicom's dedicated Mercedes-Benz marketing agency, team x. He holds decades of experience in the high-class automotive industry, previously one of the founding members and managing director of antoni, a creative agency tailor-made for Mercedes-Benz. Soon, he’ll be taking on a new role as a Luxury Lions judge at Cannes Lions this June. He is excited, of course he is, he says.

His apprehension to participate in awards mostly comes from the global turmoil markets including luxury goods have experienced after the start of a worldwide trade war. Companies across nations and sectors have had to hold on tight.

Still, Tilman accepted the jury call to learn from his colleagues, keep his eye on current trends and see the best creative work in the luxury category this year.

He has an unusual metre to judge the quality of creative work, he explains with a smile. “I listen to a feeling of envy actually.” He shakes his head, laughing at himself. “When I wish I could have come up with an idea myself or been part of a project, that is a good indicator for great creative work, I think… So my number-one factor is a gut feeling.” The second factor he looks out for is relevance. “Do people connect to it? Have we seen it around? The craft itself is also important. How well is it made?” He says that, especially in luxury, people pay a lot of attention to the quality and craft of the campaigns.

He has not seen any of the work submitted for this year yet but he is looking forward to discovering the variety of submissions. “Luxury is not homogenous. Many people forget about that. We have work from across sectors like beauty, health, automotive, fashion and even tech.”

Tilman also expects that luxury product campaigns will have to address in what way they are adding value to the consumers’ lives. “I expect to see more people- and value-centred work and fewer decadent campaigns. I mean, those will still be around, but especially right now luxury brands will try to reach more people.”

There has been a slow down in luxury sales over the last year. Whether this is cyclical or structural is a debate amongst experts in the industry. But since February, the stock charts of the biggest luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior or Burberry, look like a downturned banana, 'coincidentally lining up with Donald Trump entering the Oval Office.

Tilman thinks that Cannes Lions is a great opportunity for his peers to look at the best creative work of the year, but also to come together and discuss current trends. He laughs and puts his finger up. “Just yesterday, I learnt in my daughter's school that life-long learning is key,” he says. The panel is very skilled and diverse, he says, making conversations with each other valuable. “I want to talk to them about their opinions and experiences in the industry. Knowing what is happening all around is very important, especially when talking to clients later on.”

Seeing the creative work will be interesting and helpful to observe change in the industry too, he thinks. “I can’t wait to see the bandwidth of different creative work.”