Creativity and innovation. That’s what it’s all about at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. And the winners make it look so easy and obvious. But everyone knows that real innovation – the kind that makes people sit up and take note – is incredibly difficult and challenging.
This year’s Festival beckoned additional creativity from new quarters with a two-day Lions Innovation event within the overall Festival. Housed in the Lerins Rotunde directly behind the main Palais, delegates were invited to examine where data, technology and creativity intersect through a series of demonstrations, networking, events and talks. Three stages provided more intimate opportunities than the larger Festival theaters for delegates to see a fast-churn of presentations from a kaleidoscope of experts from agencies, consultancies, technology platforms, clients, start-ups and academia.
If you didn’t get to Cannes this year, it might be worth taking a look at some of this content separately. Andy Hobsbawm, co-founder and CMO of internet of things (IoT) pioneer EVRYTHNG, talked about digital transformation as a board level issue. “Change is happening at an accelerating rate,” he said. “In the last 50 years, there have been more scientific and technological advances than in the whole of the human experience.”
Ignoring change is not an option, Hobsbawm continued, pointing to the miss-steps by companies like Kodak and Blackberry. And he spoke about the inevitability that every physical thing will become connected – cars, houses, even the beers we drink. “The question is how we manage the explosion of data from all of these products.”
Access to data is giving rise to highly personalized and unique insights for brands, according to Andrew Buckman, managing director of OpenX. “However brands need to be aware of the potential for consumer criticism around the collection and use of data. They need to get ahead of the curve by pre-empting consumer concerns,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed by a discussion on the topic “Personal versus Creepy” among CMOs at The CMO Club’s roundtable held off-piste from the Festival. The general consensus there was 1) listen and show respect for the individual, being transparent in exchanges; 2) engage meaningfully in a relevant way, looking for ways to add value; and 3) build the relationship with the customer.
In addition to the new Festival, two new award categories were introduced: The Creative Data Lions, and the Innovation Lions.
The Creative Data Lions was introduced to celebrate game-changing creative campaigns that could clearly demonstrate that an execution had been enhanced by the use, interpretation analysis or application of data. There was no Grand Prix awarded in this category, but Gold Lion winners were impressive and included SOS SMS for the Mexican Red Cross and the 9/11 Memorial Museum experiential around personal histories.
The Innovation Lions honored innovative, brand-aligned ideas and business solutions. Standalone technological solutions including tools, models, platforms and other forms of adtech also were recognized in this category. The Grand Prix, “3 Words To Address The World”, was devised because around 75 percent of the world suffers from inconsistent, complicated or no addressing systems. This means that some four billion people are invisible; unable to report crime, get deliveries, receive aid or exercise many of their rights as citizens because they simply have no way to communicate where they live. “what3words” is an innovative global addressing system built for people - a global grid of 57 trillion 3mx3m squares where each square has been allocated a unique and fixed three-word address. The program has been selected as a candidate for the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Program.
Other winners in the Innovation category included “Clever Buoy” created by Optus in Australia to detect sharks; and “Lifepaint” by Volvo in the UK – both of which won in other Festival categories.
Innovation as a theme inevitably spilled into the main Festival program and awards. Sir Tim Berners Lee, best known for inventing the World Wide Web, addressed delegates about Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Dr Itiel Dror, Cognitive Neuroscientist from University College London, spoke about his specialism in a session entitled “Nailing Jelly to a Tree and Other Wild Goose Chases”. In a session entitled “Stretching Your Creativity: New Ways To Build In New Mediums Far Outside Your Comfort Zone”, Wearable Experiments Designer Billie Whitehouse talked about new directions in tech-enabled clothing such as the ESPN Fan Shirt she recently designed. “Every company is becoming a tech company, so they have to have visibility, whether it’s through social, innovation or a platform. It doesn’t have to be high-tech, but it has to be innovative,” she said.
And main Festival Lions winners also exemplified innovation in so many categories, from Samsung’s “Safety Truck” preventing road accidents in Argentina, to the “Life-Saving Dot” campaign infusing iodine-deficient women in India, to the “Lucky Iron Fish Project” in Cambodia where almost half of the population is iron-deficient.
