Honor is awarded to professionals who play a leading role in the creative industry
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity announced that it will honor French advertiser Jacques Séguéla with the Lion of St. Marks, an honor given to professionals who play a leading role in the creative industry.
With a career spanning more than 60 years in the sector, Séguéla has produced work for brands such as Air France, Apple, Carrefour, Citroën, Louis Vuitton and Microsoft, as well as political campaigns. He is also the author of several books on advertising.
“Jacques Séguéla turned 90 this year and still comes into the office every day to work on campaigns for his clients. The word is overused, but Jacques is an icon. He is bold, passionate and creative – and all with a tremendous sense of warmth and humor. As an industry, we are delighted that he has switched careers from pharmacy to advertising, because we all benefit from his creativity,” said Philip Thomas, chairman of Cannes Lions.
Having started his professional life in pharmacy, Séguéla changed his life path and, after traveling the world, writing his first book and venturing into journalism, he teamed up with Bernard Roux to create the Roux Séguela agency.
The agency’s first work was a piece showing former French president Georges Pompidou, riding a Mercury engine in St Tropez Bay with the headline “Take the Express and Take Off”. Then, Alain Cayzac and Jean-Michel Goudard joined the agency and RSCG took shape, eventually becoming Euro RSCG, which ended its activities in 2012 after being purchased by Havas Group.
The advertiser has a range of successful campaigns in his extensive portfolio, such as “Produits Libre”, created for Carrefour, and a piece made for Citroën, which took the Citroën AX model for a ride along the Great Wall of China. Séguéla also led the election campaigns of former French president François Mitterrand, creating the slogan “Le Force Tranquille” in 1981.
“After 60 years of festivals, I have seen this industry evolve every decade, but one thing has never changed: advertising is, was and always will be about having an idea. I have had the great honor of working all my life not to sell products, but to make brands eternal. I’m extremely thrilled to be recognized with this iconic award and share it with all my fellow creatives. Behind your ideas, choose optimism and give brands the one thing that will keep them alive. : a soul”, celebrated Séguéla.
With the honor, he joins names such as Susan Hoffman, CCO of Wieden+Kennedy, Colleen DeCourcy, current CCO of Snapchat, John Hegarty, one of the founders of the BBH network, Mary Wells Lawrence, founder of the Wells Rich Greene agency in 1966, Dan Wieden, among others.
