Truth, Trust, and Experience: Protecting Brand Value in the Age of Deepfakes
# AI and brand trust
# Experience-led growth
# B2B events and media
# Creative leadership
# Executive strategy
# Revenue durability
# Customer experience
Why creativity, credibility, and human connection have become the most defensible revenue assets in an AI-driven economy
Heather Holst-Knudsen
How creativity, human connection, and credibility are becoming the most defensible revenue assets
As AI accelerates content creation and deepfakes blur the line between real and synthetic, brand value is being tested in entirely new ways. The question leaders now face is not how fast they can scale reach, but how effectively they can protect trust.
In this episode of The Revenue Room™ Podcast, I sat down with Philip Thomas, Chief Creative Officer at Informa and Chairman of Cannes Lions, to explore why truth, experience, and creativity are emerging as the most durable sources of growth in an increasingly automated economy.
What emerged was a clear message for CEOs, CMOs, and board leaders alike: in a world where content is cheap and replication is easy, experience and credibility are what compound.
Why Experience Matters More as Digital Scales
Philip’s career began in consumer media, but his move into B2B events revealed an early insight that now feels prescient. As digital channels scale, human connection does not diminish in value. It increases.
When information becomes abundant, discernment becomes scarce. Live experiences, trusted convenings, and shared moments create meaning in ways no algorithm can replicate. This belief reshaped how Philip approached Cannes Lions and later informed Informa’s broader growth strategy.
Rather than treating events as transactional moments, he saw them as brand ecosystems. Year-round engagement. Multiple touchpoints. Communities built around shared ambition, not just attendance.
That shift changed everything.
Cannes Lions as a Brand, Not an Event
Cannes Lions did not scale by chasing volume. It scaled by deepening relevance.
Philip described how the festival evolved from a niche awards show into a global platform by investing in programming, partnerships, and experiences that reinforced its role as the creative industry’s center of gravity. The event became a signal of credibility. Being there meant something.
This approach offers a powerful lesson for any business navigating commoditization. Growth does not come from doing more. It comes from designing experiences that people trust, return to, and advocate for.
Why Informa Elevated Creativity to the Executive Level
One of the most striking parts of our conversation was Philip’s explanation of why Informa made creativity an executive function.
In many organizations, creativity lives downstream. It is tasked with packaging strategy rather than shaping it. Informa took a different path. Creativity was positioned as a growth lever, accountable for commercial outcomes, not just expression.
That does not mean creativity without discipline. Philip was clear that ideas only drive revenue when paired with process, operational rigor, and measurement. Creativity must be scalable, repeatable, and connected to value creation.
When that happens, experiences stop being expenses and start becoming assets.
Trust in the Age of Deepfakes and AI
As AI-generated content becomes indistinguishable from reality, trust is rapidly becoming a competitive advantage.
Philip emphasized that governance, authenticity, and credibility are no longer abstract values. They are revenue drivers. Brands that cannot prove who they are and what they stand for will struggle to sustain loyalty in an environment flooded with synthetic signals.
Live experiences, trusted communities, and human-led storytelling provide an anchor. They create proof of presence and intent that technology alone cannot fake at scale.
In this context, brand is no longer just what you say. It is what people experience and believe.
Scaling Through Alignment, Not Just Acquisition
Informa’s growth strategy has included significant acquisitions, but Philip highlighted that scale only works when mission and culture align.
Integration accelerates when teams share a common belief in why the organization exists and how it creates value. Without that alignment, scale creates friction. With it, scale creates momentum.
This principle applies well beyond events. Any organization pursuing growth through expansion must invest as much in shared purpose as in operational efficiency.
Creativity Still Wins, But Only With Patience
Philip closed our conversation with a reminder many leaders need to hear. Innovation is not self-executing.
In a world obsessed with speed and automation, the companies that will endure are those willing to invest in creativity, experience, and human connection with a long-term view. These are not nostalgic assets. They are the most defensible ones we have.
That long-term view is also why we built RevvedUP 2026 and Revenue Room™ CXO. These are spaces designed for CEOs and senior leaders who understand that creativity, trust, and experience cannot be rushed or outsourced. They must be shaped deliberately, tested with peers, and governed with intention. For leaders navigating brand integrity and growth in an AI-saturated world, this is where conviction turns into operating discipline.
