Samantha Hernández Díaz on the Creative Data Opening Doors at Cannes 2023

Samantha Hernández Díaz is the chief strategy officer at GUT Mexico City. As the strategist behind the most-awarded Mexican campaign at Cannes Lions, she’s known for championing strategic impact in brand transformation. For over 20 years, she’s led strategy, experience design and applied intelligence and consulting teams at agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and Publicis Groupe. Today, she works with some of the world’s boldest brands, including Michelob ULTRA, Corona and Coca-Cola, to name a few. 

GUT was named the #2 global independent network of the year at Cannes Lions in 2022, and this year, Samantha is representing the team - and Mexican creativity more widely - as the jury president for the Creative Data Lions. This category celebrates work that sits at the interplay of ideas and information - work that has been enhanced or driven by the creative use, interpretation, analysis or application of data.

Speaking with LBB’s Ben Conway, Samantha discusses everything Creative Data at Cannes 2023, her approach to judging this category, and being the first from her native Mexico to be a jury president at the festival.

LBB> You’re the strategist behind the most awarded Mexican campaign at Cannes Lions - how have you seen Mexican creativity grow on this stage in the last 20 years?

Samantha> Mexico is becoming a creative powerhouse by courageously exploring new languages, brand narratives and ways of solving problems. The categories of the most significant awards in the last couple of years are far from conventional, and that tells you how seriously innovation is being taken in this market by the brands and the people behind them.

LBB> The Creative Data Lions celebrate the interplay of ideas and information - is it difficult for creatives to find a balance between the two? How have you used data to inform your creativity in the past?

Samantha> Creativity is born out of a curiosity to understand how the world works, in order to better interact with it. Learning about it in even greater granularity is an increasingly genuine interest of the creative community, which is what makes it so natural today for ideas to use information systems as solution enablers, not just as mere inspiration.

LBB> How are you preparing yourself and your jury for the jury room this year?

Samantha> It has been a preparation process of many weeks in which we have prioritised three things: to take the time to get to know the work with an extreme level of detail, to nurture our individual repertoire, and to leave room for our collective gut to be enriched with the expertise and diversity of each one's background.

LBB> What is it about the Creative Data Lions category that really excites or interests you?

Samantha> It is fascinating how human creativity evolves and how much its capacity for impact grows when assisted by technology. In particular, using data opens doors to levels of understanding and scalability of solutions that we could never have dreamed of before.

LBB> What are the current big debates within this specific category - or more generally across the industry - that you expect to see coming through in the judging?

Samantha> From the top of my head: 

- Creative data vs. just data.

- Innovation at the service of the idea vs. innovation just for the sake of it. 

- Applicability and scalability.

- Impact and influence vs. results-only.

LBB> What relationships between different departments, agencies, and companies do you think are most crucial to build up and protect at this time in advertising?

Samantha> All of them. Diversity and collaboration are keystones for stronger creative cultures and better work. Preserving the creative ambition and the results that come with it is a task for highly motivated teams and well-connected partnerships. 

LBB> Looking at last year's Grand Prix winner, ‘Data Tienda,’ what collaborations and creative partnerships on that project do you think made it so successful?

Samantha> I would imagine that bringing in risk analysts, financial advisors and data specialists was as important as having the shopkeepers and women contribute to designing the best version of a new financial information system.

LBB> Cannes is also a time of celebration. What will you be celebrating this year?

Samantha> To begin with, having 20 years of my career crowned with this incredible experience of being jury president, the first Mexican in history, is one of the greatest honours of my professional journey and a major milestone for the Creative Industry in my home country. But that’s just to begin with; we might just wait till the end of the festival to circle back on the 2nd half of this answer.