InterContinental Hotels' Larry Light Leads a Global Marketing Transformation

July 1, 2013

Larry Light, appointed a year ago as Chief Brands Officer of interContinental Hotels Group (IHG), has the rare ability to take the complicated and not merely make it simple, but also make it meaningful. He has enjoyed an extraordinary marketing career as agency executive, brand champion, advisor, author and academic, but may be best known for his contributions to McDonald's while CMO from 2002-2005. Not only did he galvanize a global brand behind "I'm Lovin' It," adopted from DDB's Heye & Partner of Unterhaching, Bermany as part of a breakthrough agency competition, but the expression has made its way into the local language of 47 million customers and has become McDonald's longest-enduring tagline-turned-mantra. Larry Light was unquestionably instrumental in the company's outstanding marketing turnaround.

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