Cannes Jury Insights: Work That Moves the Needle, Silliness, and Tangible Results Impressed

Ariana was pleased that though the category is still relatively new, the eight total awarded Lions went to work from seven different countries. To continue shaping and defining the category this year, she worked with the jury to answer three “difficult” questions, getting to the essence of what transformation means now, and what it should be for the years ahead. “What’s been transformed?,” asked Ariana. “We looked for cases that really showed a before and after. Then we passed another filter which was business. It needed to do good and get the business to grow. Finally, what was the creative idea behind it? Because transformation truly is imperative for businesses today, but we needed to see genius and  magic applied to the solution.” 

Trend-wise, she spotted work that demonstrated principles of circularity and the circular economy, and work that helped everyone - businesses and its consumers, rising to the top of the shortlists. “The other thing that we saw, that we really loved, was that innovation is not really a synonym for technology. The cases that won were powered by technology, but not technology led. We saw a lot of cases around product development and a lot of tangible products. We saw a lot of cases about operational readiness, about new relationship models where technology was needed to go to market, to scale, but it was not necessarily the centre of the solution.”

For Ariana and her jury, ‘Refurb’ for Philips showed how a brand can move the needle on the whole industry by asking a simple question, ‘Who said that new is better?’. Ariana called this “profound” and commended the agenda-setting move by the brand that will have its competitors wondering how to match its scale and creativity.

The category saw the most entries since it was launched in 2011, which for jury president Harjot Singh was symptomatic of where the industry is right. There’s an “urgency of stating, claiming, and declaring the value that we create in business – in the industry, it's never been greater,” said Harjot. “We need to claim that value, we need to do that with confidence, and we need to do that with a level of certainty that brings back this driver in the industry and removes this conversation that we hear all the time about marketing being the cost that needs to be managed to drive greater efficiencies, when everybody in this room knows that it's actually an investment that needs to be optimised to drive greater impact.”

Effectiveness, for Harjot, is a precise set of criteria: ABCD. A: audacity and ambition; B: bravery, C: causality, D: direction.

‘It Has to Be Heinz’ for Heinz Ketchup was awarded the Grand Prix and Harjot pointed out that this campaign reversed a five year decline for the brand by sticking with the brand platform. “The Grand Prix doesn't have to be a representation or an aggregate of the best that we want to put forward. It has to be a totem, which is much bigger than representation. A totem is something you look toward for guidance, for courage, and for reassurance. You don't need exact answers from a totem, but you need hope and you need possibility,” he explained. 

“The notion of creative strategy is truly, now more than ever before, a double entendre. It's about strategy that leads the creative work. But it's also about creativity in the strategy. In the years past, people didn't necessarily connect, or the industry didn't necessarily connect that strategy has to be built. It has to be innovative. It has to push the envelope,” said jury president Vita M. Harris. 

A few things emerged for Vita and her jury during the judging. “The first one was just how adept, attuned and expansive modern strategies need to be. The second thing was how important and enduring brand values, brand purpose and brand connectivity are. Lastly, creative strategy doesn't have to decide between building brands and businesses or driving positive change in the world, but rather, a smart and modern strategy has the power to seamlessly do both.” 

“We realised that this was a piece of work that fired on all cylinders,” Vita commented on the Grand Prix winner, ‘A Piece of Me’ for KPN. She praised the work for daring to take on the very current issue of teen sexting, using a brilliant insight, creating work that travelled beyond its own market and made a tangible difference.

This was a brand new category at Cannes this year, created to recognise and celebrate the breadth of creativity in the luxury sector – one that “touches so many people around the world and has so much power,” according to the jury president, Charles Georges-Picot. Featuring 200 submissions, the jury’s aims  were very much focused on remit setting as they looked to send a message to next year’s submissions. “We talked a lot about creativity and quality at the same time. If you think of big luxury brands, they have both sides,” Charles said. 

Charles and his jury wanted to see a few key features in the work they awarded. “We tried to award work that had the highest quality standards of craft and would also have a positive impact on us – work that was respecting cultures as well work that used technology.”

Loewe’s ‘Loewe x Suna Fujita’ won the Grand Prix for its blend of traditional craftsmanship with modern design, pushing the limits of sustainability, and moving at the speed of culture. Charles pointed out that all brands in the luxury space need to pay attention to Loewe, which has been outperforming while other luxury brands are lagging behind. 

The beauty of this category for jury president Anselmo Ramo is that anything can be brand experience; it’s a very elastic category in that way. “A flaw in your product, a snack, a job, a tasting test, a barf bag, a really long promo code, a grain of rice; the list goes on,” he said could all constitute brand experience. 

A few trends surfaced during judging like more brands reacting to culture, brands that are ego-less and create space for its consumers, a lot of AI used for customisation – especially in healthcare – and a lot more silly promotions. On the subject of silliness, he said: “This is a great trend. We'd love to see more of that,” hinting at what would take the top prize for his category. 

Pop-Tarts’ ‘The First Edible Mascot’ was awarded the Grand Prix and Anselmo said, “The first time that we considered this for the Grand Prix, it was a joke. We said, what if that's the Grand Prix? And then we laughed.” After deliberating, the jury agreed that it was weird, bizarre, genius, and decided that it was top-prize worthy. “Next time, remember, a joke can become a Grand Prix,” he concluded. 

When deliberating about the work, Diego Machado and his jury focused on whether the innovation at the heart of the idea marked a final chapter, or “just opening a door for many others.” He noted that AI of course popped up, but that AI itself can be a distraction and it will never replace what an idea is. He saw this in work that combined high tech with a very simple product. 

On the subject of data, which the industry has been collecting for a while now, he said, “only maybe in the last few years have we started understanding this data. We have the tools now to not just track, but to understand data in a different way.”

The Grand Prix was awarded to KVI Brave Fund INC’s ‘Diabetes Diagnostic Solution’ and commended it for “creating for the future”, with Diego adding, “it's a great idea for this brand, but also opens a door for many others in the category.”

“We were very narrow on creative commerce, because commerce can mean everything everywhere all at once,” said jury president Amy Lanzi, pointing out that the category used to be e-commerce before evolving into today’s iteration. 

As it turned out, a few big themes surfaced during judging. “The first is what I'm calling ‘community IRL’. I don't mean community commerce, but how we're using commerce and new business models to galvanise the community around a problem, whether that's access to the bank or access to credit. The second is the convergence of CRM and commerce, as well as the convergence of content and commerce.”

 

Amy’s jury awarded Renault’s ‘Cars to Work’ the Grand Prix and she said: “It was so different and also really moved what we're defining as creative commerce forward in comparison to some of the other fantastic runners,” praising it as an example of “sustainable commerce.”