Lowe & Partners Takes Over Cannes Forum for 'Art Meets Advertising Remixed'

This year, for the first time, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity has co-curated, with selected partners, a series of themed days featuring international speakers, presentations, debate, discussion and inspiration focusing on 6 hot topics, impacting our industry, worldwide, today. Lowe & Partners annual awards initiative, the Nova Awards, takes over the Cannes Forum on Thursday 19th June alongside their long term partners, Central St Martins, to present a day examining where the worlds of art and advertising meet and the impact one world has on the other.

The day will be opened at 9.45am by our Chairman, Tony Wright and a packed schedule of presenters will be introduced across the day by Head of Central St Martins, Jeremy Till and our own Zoe Lazarus from Lowe Counsel, who is also Creative Director of the Nova Awards. Zoe and Jeremy will also host interactive Q&A’s after each session.

Wright, Lazarus and Till will introduce to the Forum stage creative leaders from fashion retail brand The Kooples, Pulse Films, Microsoft, It’s Nice That, Creative Social and Flipboard, to name a few. Till will also present his thoughts on art in the digital age while Lazarus will share exclusive content from her ‘Creative Fuel 2015 Report’ –previewing trends that will show how art should impact how we create campaigns every day.

Now in its 4th year, the Nova Awards was set up by our network to recognize the best of the best graduates from Central St Martins, annually. This famous college has many of the most iconic artists, fashion designers, actors, graphic designers and film makers the world has seen. Alexander McQueen, Katharine Hamnett, Phoebe Philo, Stella McCartney, Sir Paul Smith, Gilbert & George, Thomas Heatherwick, Sir Terence Conran and Sir James Dyson all graduated from Central St Martins, as did Colin Firth, Russell Brand, Jarvis Cocker and Paloma Faith.

Can what appears to be high-brow meet populist? Can commercial creativity meet ‘pure’ creativity? Street art, filmmaking and fashion are regular features of advertising creativity, but is there cross-pollination between trends in the art world, and those in advertising that can be an exciting source of creative inspiration for both.