Cannes Jury Insights: Thursday’s Lions
Speaking at press conferences at Cannes Lions 2023 on Thursday, the jury presidents for the Creative Business Transformation, Creative Commerce, Creative Effectiveness, Creative & Strategy, Brand Experience & Activation, Innovation and Mobile Lions revealed the winning work from their respective categories and pulled the curtain back on the judging process.
Joining Cannes Lions’ CEO, Simon Cook, for the first conference was Justin Peyton, global head of emerging channels at Wunderman Thompson and jury president for the Creative Business Transformation Lions; Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, CCO at FCB Canada and jury president for the Creative Commerce Lions; Devika Bulchandani, global CEO at Ogilvy and
jury president for the Creative Effectiveness Lions; and Amrita Randhawa, CEO at Publicis Groupe, Singapore and South-East Asia and jury president for the Creative Strategy Lions.
At the second conference was Grace Francis, global chief creative and design officer at Wongdoody and jury president for the Innovation Lions, and Shannon Washington, US CCO at R/GA and jury president for the Mobile Lions - as well as jury members from the Brand Experience & Activation Lions, in the absence of jury president and CCO of DDB Worldwide, Ari Weiss.
The jury presidents discussed why their juries selected the Grand Prix and shared a little insight into the judging process as a whole. To see what trends, challenges and surprises the presidents identified from their categories, read on.
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Throughout all categories, much of the highly awarded work showed how an idea can connect to and support marginalised communities - all while assisting the growth of the associated brand. For example, Justin Peyton praised Business Transformation Grand Prix-winner ‘ADLam’ for “empowering people to create their own businesses within their culture and, by doing so, creating new opportunities for Microsoft to have an entirely new audience base.”
Similarly, Amrita noted how the effective Creative Strategy entries created ideas with “clear, sharp and tangible creative strategy that tried to create real financial value for a brand.”
Across the board, the presidents identified that these solutions had to achieve several things. Firstly, they had to make you feel. Whether it’s to encourage people to provide personal biometric data or simply getting them to engage, Grace explained the importance of creating work that affects the heart as well as the head. This is especially important in the Mobile category, as Shannon suggested how the sector can be an “isolating” experience and therefore needs work that makes you smile, but also feel jealous. She celebrated the category’s entries that “connected people to each other, culture and commerce in new ways.”
Another prominent theme of the discussions was ‘simplicity’. Repeatedly coming up in the presidents criteria and trends, the power of simplicity is evidently not one to be overlooked at Cannes. This means simplicity in the idea, the campaign’s problem solving, and even how the entry is presented to the jurors. “Ambiguity will hurt you,” said Nancy, explaining how entrants should be direct and avoid overcomplicating the accompanying written materials. Devika went as far as to say that documents that accompany the case studies are “just as, if not more, important as the stories.”
In her category, food and beverage campaigns came out on top - again showing the power of simplicity and how it helps communicate an idea to a jury of diverse backgrounds and occupations. “We all need to eat and drink - that’s the commonality that binds us all together as humans. What rose to the top were the pieces that remind us of the human condition, not something that divides us and gives an idea to bridge that divide.”
The presidents also highlighted that some of the most effective work showed how the companies were not just presenting a one-off idea or project, but demonstrating how a brand can “systemised the process” - as Justin put it - to create a scalable solution that could be replicated elsewhere with other audiences; to “look beyond the primary consumer base and consider all stakeholders.” Amrita described this - something she said she saw in all 25 of her category’s awarded pieces - as a shift from point of view to ‘point of due’. “We saw brands not just say they want to stand for something but operationalising and creating a way for problems to be solved.”
And, of course, innovative technology was on the tip of everyone’s tongues - none more so than AI. For Nancy, the best work utilised technology “not just for technology’s sake, but for a new emotional experience.” The Grand Prix for the Innovation Lions - Augmental’s ‘Mouth Pad’ - was a perfect example of this, argued Grace, saying how it had “the power to transform life in such a holistic way, where the use of innovation doesn’t just touch on the practical but the emotional too.”
Speaking to AI specifically, she added that there is a need to harness tech to find an “alchemy of answers” - not necessarily something that can be measured in a spreadsheet - and made a prediction: “Next year, we’re going to see more of a blend and merger where AI is no longer a separate element but is intrinsic to the idea.”
“We’re starting to see the duality of AI,” said Shannon, identifying that there were examples of winning work that used AI in entertaining, engaging and utilitarian ways. “The mobile category and AI are almost synonymous because of how a lot of our tools and social platforms work,” she continued. “We’re starting to see how we can apply a lot of learnings in interesting ways to create seamless, engaging experiences.”
However, at the core of every entry - even those that use AI - is creativity, and Nancy suggested that this is where the human touch will always play a part in creating Grand Prix-worthy work. “Creativity is an economic multiplier,” she said. “AI is great, but it cannot replace human thinking and creativity when creating human experiences.”
