Google’s Allan Thygesen, president of Americas and global partners, has been making the most of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where Google and YouTube have set up camp on the beach. Thygesen is taking up to 10 meetings a day with agencies and brands. “We joke, but it’s actually very efficient,” he said.

The marketing world is a bit upside-down at the moment, with brands worried about data changes crimping digital advertising and fears of a recession, among other concerns. Even Cannes, where it’s typically all sunshine this time of year, has seen rain for two days straight. Fortunately, Google brought beach umbrellas.

On Wednesday, Ad Age caught up with Thygesen to talk about what the tech giant is doing at the creative advertising festival, touching on the changing trends in the media industry and Google’s commitment to end the cookie on Chrome. Thygesen also gave his perspective on upfront TV marketplace, while skirting how Google could be in the running to partner with Netflix in its new ad-supported venture, which has been the talk of the town.

Here is what Thygesen had to say, in a lightly edited Cannes interview.

What are Google’s conversations about at Cannes?

I think what this community here represents is really the creative side of the advertising business, although there are lots of media people here. This is a special gathering place for the creative side, and that part of the ecosystem is becoming more and more important to us.

One of my favorite things about Cannes is I can bring Lorraine [Twohill, Google’s chief marketing officer] and team into some of our client meetings, because they are such thought leaders and are on the cutting edge. So it's great for marketers, instead of hearing from me, to hear from a fellow marketer.

What has Google been telling the ad world here?

The overall creative economy, if you can talk to the ad agencies, that part of the business is growing faster than the media business. ... [Automation] frees up time and creates more emphasis for the biggest remaining lever for performance, and where humans are essential, which is the strategy and creative.

How much are you discussing the death of cookies, which Google promised to phase out by next year?

I don’t have a meeting here where we don’t talk about privacy and measurement. Our strategy is to try to do something that is very consumer-centric, opt-in driven. But in addition to meeting consumer expectations, it doesn’t completely destroy the publisher and advertising ecosystem.

Some ad agencies and brands are not convinced Google will be able to meet its goal to deprecate cookies. Do you hear that ever?

I am surprised to hear that. We’ve made a very public commitment to do that, so that is what I expect to have happen next fall.

Ad Age reported this week that Google is one of the contenders meeting with Netflix in Cannes, as the streaming company looks for partners to introduce ads. Did you meet with Netflix?

All I can say about that is, look every streaming service, I think, is going to have an ad-supported version, and I wasn’t surprised to see even Netflix is going to go there. I think they have a fantastic set of products and they’ll be successful. My understanding is they’re out talking to people, and that’s as much as I can say about it.

How does Google’s ad tech fit into the connected TV streaming ecosystem, in general, then?

We are a supplier of a series of tools, both for the buying side and the sell-side of the advertising business. And today through DV360 [Google’s demand-side platform]—not just YouTube—but you can buy nine out of the top 10 ad-supported streaming services in the U.S.

On the publisher side, we provide a suite of tools to publishers of all sizes. I mean, Disney uses our publisher tools to serve ads on a number of their platforms; lots of very large publishers do that.

Google is a giant company, with broad insights into the global economy, what is your outlook for advertising?

It’s very nuanced because different industries are experiencing very different dynamics. The travel industry is booming after the depths of the COVID depression; the automotive industry is having a hard time because they can’t get parts. That obviously has a negative impact on their advertising.

I was talking to one of the biggest beer and soft-drink players yesterday, they can’t get aluminum for their cans or glass for their bottles. They’re actually physically constrained in packaging. I expect the advertising industry will pivot more to performance and very results-based advertising. That typically is what happens if the economy gets a little tighter.

More from Ad Age: How top tv advertisers plan to spend amid economic headwinds

We have seen some major brands talk about belt-tightening on linear TV, does that mean your message to marketers to ditch TV is finally getting through?

When people ask me what was the major media trend during COVID, and what will be the major media trend of the next couple of years, I say, "video." The pace of consumption on digital platforms is incredible, you’ve seen so much innovation in formats. If you look at the efficiency and return on investment by format, in fact, the traditional TV spot, the 30-second format, is almost the bottom of the trough, the worst return on ad spend.

But just because linear TV is dying, the TV screen is very much alive.

Could you say how YouTube is doing in its upfront?

I think we’re going to do very well, but look every broadcaster is also talking first about their streaming platform. So if you’re Disney, you talk about Disney+ and Hulu, and if you’re NBCUniversal, you talk about Peacock, and so everybody is leaning into their CTV assets. And we’re wrapping it up right now, so I really can’t share.

What are the signs to look for in a successful upfront sales season?

The things to look at are what happened to their CPMs [cost to reach 1,000 viewers], so their price, and then what happened to their total committed dollars. I think those are two variables, right, the CPM will tell you what kind of price increase that platform can command, and the total dollars will say what’s their share of wallet, or voice if you will, in the upfront. Those would be two numbers that I want to look at over time.