China now has more than 700 million Internet users and 1 billion 4G mobile data users. These numbers suggest that China is soaring faster into the digital era, faster than most had imagined. But how should companies market in the digital era here in China and what should companies be doing differently? These questions are being debated at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, the Oscars for the advertising and marketing sector.

Marc is CHIEF BRAND OFFICER of PROCTER AND GRAMBLE, which has been in the Chinese market for decades. According to him, P&G has reinvented the way they do brand building, much of that thanks to their experience in China.

MARC PRITCHARD, CHIEF BRAND OFFICER PROCTER AND GRAMBLE "What happened in China is the massive shift towards the digital economy, e-commerce economy and once that happened, we need to shift with it. So we reinvented how we do our media, so we have one of the biggest data's measures platform in the country. It allowed us to be much more precise about who we target and how we target."

Armed with new technologies and data, P&G was able to cut waste and reach more potential customers. In fact, 70% of the media spending of P&G in China is in digital and most of it in mobile.

MARC PRITCHARD, CHIEF BRAND OFFICER PROCTER AND GRAMBLE "I can even remember on a whisper, a couple of years ago actually, where there was saying that people in Wechat were calling our new product, cloudy soft, they call it cloud-like softness, they also started to talk about the new pad we had, liquid pad, so they essentially name the way we talked about our brands."

BIG data, social media and AI are technological tools, adding wings to marketing in the digital era. But don't forget Chinese traditional culture in your marketing behaviour.

SENG YEE LAU, SENIOR EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT TENCENT "We are about technology and culture. And the culture can be manifested in many many dimensions. Wechat pay has a contributing role to play, tapping into the tradition of Chinese culture, we called hongbao. When hongbao can be used in the digital manner, the usage and occasion of hongbao is no longer limited to Chinese new year, it can be day to day, kind of what you called, little social games between friends and friends and colleagues."

BOB LIODICE, CEO ANA "The very best of marketing start with the very best of creativity and what we always about the Chinese is the technological innovation, the creativity, the courage to try new things, I think China can be an extraordinary force for innovation and an extraordinary force for good."

China is now the world's second biggest marketing spender. In 2017, the digital advertising market was worth more than 310 billion RMB--a lucrative field for creative, culturally aware and tech-enabled marketers.