7 Creative Trends to Expect at the Cannes Lions 2023

 

First thing first, two trends seem so obvious that we don't even need to talk about them: 

AI. AI will make a big splash at the Cannes Lions with a lot of campaigns that actually look like each other ("I asked Midjourney to create something that we cannot imagine ourselves" used for blind people, soldiers’ letters, refugees...)

Gaming. After a big explosion last year, gaming will keep its momentum (now with its own category). Brands have fallen in love with modifying games for their operations (to save cats, to better represent African culture, or to allow a real person to become a gaming character).

 

I would rather focus on other trends that seem more interesting, because less obvious. 

In 2023, we seem to be back to old school advertising, simple but not simplistic, which puts value into strong big ideas without trying to create complex digital or user-generated activations like we might have seen in the past. The perfect example is ‘Lacoste - Unexpected Encounters’ that is saying so many things without any other words that the brand's logo, or ‘British Airways - A British Original’ that sells travel without the use of images. We can also mention ‘Ikea - Proudly The Second Best’ that brings us back to famous print ads from the past - a feat that we were not expecting coming from Ikea. We can also add into the mix ‘Honda - The Beautiful Fail’ that we might end up seeing in the winners list in Cannes.

Prepare your napkins because we are about to witness a tsunami of ketchup. Who's to blame ? Heinz, of course. The brand is spreading into all types of fields and we might see it in almost all the Cannes Lions categories. From Product Design, with a dirty collab, to Print with shameless restaurant owners, to Innovation, with a bottle that would solve a problem old as ketchup, and of course PR or Media, with AI use cases that might win it all. There are also some unidentified objects that are quite hard to grasp like an ink for tattoos or a partnership with Absolut Vodka. 

Campaigns for good will still be omnipresent this year, but some operations are destined to come out on top if we refer ourselves to previous awards shows. It's hard to think that ‘Tuvalu - The First Digital Nation’ will come home empty-handed, as well as ‘CALM x ITV - The Last Photo’ – campaigns that seem tailor-made for advertising competitions. Closer to our market, there is some potential with ‘CER - The Lost Ride’, the driving school that gives its empty seats in the back to people in need, or the ambitious ‘Renault - Time Fighters’ that brings on firemen at the inception of car design and manufacturing to bring down the time needed to secure trapped passengers in case of emergencies.

As the number of prestige TV shows and streaming services seem to increase every single day, brands have turned their focus to sports to build their brands. This year already looks like a winner when you look at campaigns jumping on sports news. From ‘Amazon Prime Video - Ligue 1 Uber Eats Symphony’ that revisits major sports competitions' hymns, to the omnipresent Ted Lasso running on virtual pitches or hyping up real players from Team USA as if he was real. And also with ‘Budweiser - Bring Home The Bud’ or ‘Michelob ULTRA - Michelob Guy’ that, each in their own way, hijack news with great ideas.

Thematic, a bit more unexpected, we see some campaigns play with time periods. The ‘Clash of Clans - Clash From The Past’ mockumentary that celebrates its 10-year anniversary by imagining its fictional 40-year evolution to please gamers. The absurd and awesome ‘Oreo - Bring Back 2011’ from India that relaunches the brand just as if it was 2011 once again, the last year of India's victory at the Cricket World Cup in order to bring hope for the 2022 edition of the competition. And we can also mention the brilliant ‘LALCEC’s - The Postponed Day’ from Argentina, that shows how stupid it can be to postpone one's cancer detection appointment, and reaches out to 30 health organisations to postpone, again and again, National Day Against Cancer.

And what if the coolest device of the year wasn't a connected fridge, a smartwatch or a drone, but a pet ? Small and large animals are getting augmented this year. from ‘Honest Eggs - FitChix’ and its hens equipped with pedometers to print on the eggs the number of kilometres covered before hatching. Or ‘Take 5 Car Wash - Official Pigeon’ and its incredible bird, that wins you a free car wash if it defecates on your car. Or even the Icelandic horses of ‘Visit Iceland - OutHorse Your Email’ that will take care of writing your out of office emails for you thanks to a giant keyboard.

Do you like Disney movies ? Then, you will like a winners list that will undoubtedly feature campaigns that come close to animation classics. It could be in a straightforward way like ‘MUSKRAT Magazine - Missing Matoaka’, that remakes Pocahontas to show the true and way more tragic story of the title character. We can also think about Wall-E when viewing ‘Husqvarna - Happy-Birthday From Earth’, which updates robot mowers to sing happy birthday to the Mars Curiosity Rover. We can also mention ‘Hey Duggee - The Welcome Badge’, a British animated show that invites characters from an ukrainian cartoon for a rare crossover for under five year olds in order to teach them some words in another language.

 

To sum it up all, at the 2023 Cannes Lions, we can expect a back to basics with augmented animals that surf like athletes on steroids on a huge ketchup wave. Can't wait!