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This year’s event, which ended last Friday (21), had more than 150 hours of lectures
The 71st edition of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which ended last Friday (21), had more than 150 hours of content, produced by around 500 speakers. A bigger number than last year, when 400 speakers took to the Palais stages.
Among the prominent names were David Droga, Elon Musk, Queen Latifah. The actress, in fact, spoke about the legacy built with the “It’s bigger than this’ campaign, launched by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in the United States, in 2021.
“The action demystifies the stigmas and perceptions that worsen obesity, making people aware that it is a disease, a health condition”, comments Queen Latifah. “Create more dialogues”, asks the actress to creative professionals.
Elon Musk, in turn, participated in the session ‘Exploring the new frontiers of innovation’, which was mediated by Mark Read, CEO of the WPP group. The packed Lumière Theater auditorium at the Palais des Festivals saw Read asking Musk thorny questions.
“What exactly did you mean when you told the advertising market to go to hell?” asked Read. Musk responded that “people have the right to speak and have the right to appear on the platform”. For the businessman, effective advertising is one that can reach the target that consumes a certain type of content.
O propmark asked some agency executives what content they liked most about this year’s edition of Cannes Lions. See some of the responses below.
“What I liked most about the Cannes festival was watching lectures about different points of view based on similar premises. And the possible points of reflection based on that. Seeing David Droga saying that great powers come with great responsibilities and that there are business opportunities doing good. In addition to the fact that often not doing so is also a loss of business and opportunities; it undoubtedly fuels my hope for how our industry can foster a society that increasingly values win-win. very important discussions and reflections on AI, democracy, fake news, the future and how we are going to ensure that the ultra-concentrated power of big techs and their interests, not always collective, interest me much more. And that’s why I bring here Maria Ressa’s talk, Nobel Peace Prize, as a highlight of what I followed. And unfortunately it seems that if good can bring good business results, evil certainly can too. And she exemplifies it by saying that content with lies, when linked to fear and hatred, spreads six times. times more. Or that the optimization of content delivery through social networks impacts 13-year-old girls in 3 minutes with sexualized content. And that 26 fake accounts on platforms engage up to 3 million other accounts. So there are many paths for business to be prosperous, but here is a reflection on which paths we are going to promote as an industry” Juliana Elia, VP of strategy at Publicis“What I really liked about Diana Frost’s (Chief Growth Officer at Kraft Heinz) talk was that they evaluated the work they were doing and the fact that they turned the brand around, created a very simple platform that works globally, and, by aligning the teams from all the countries where Heinz is present, they were able to create different strategies and creative pieces in each country, always respecting the global strategy.” Manir Fadel, chairman and CCO of Grey“Trust was the word that surrounded the Palais during Cannes Lions 2024. Different lectures, with almost antagonistic themes, brought trust as a fundamental pillar in the creativity process. From a business perspective, John Regarty, global advertising legend and one of the founders from Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA London, had a very interesting panel with Orlando Wood. The two presented numbers that demonstrate the importance of trust for the growth of companies and reinforced the logic with the phrase “you don’t buy anything from people you don’t like”. Another notable mention of the word trust came from Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Mattel, who received the award for ‘Entertainment Person of the Year’. He told how trusting the talent and creativity of Greta Gerwig, director of the film Barbie, was fundamental throughout. the process also showed the section in which Barbie questions who the CEO of Mattel is and is confronted by a sexist speech, which was quite interesting. But, without a doubt, the most impactful application of the word trust was from Maria Ressa, winner. of the Nobel Peace Prize. She spoke about the manipulation of social media, highlighting the importance of having reliable sources of news and coined a phrase that should mark the festival: “Without facts there is no truth and without truth there is no trust” Juliana Leite, VP of special projects and creative content at Africa Creative“A talk that I really enjoyed was given by Cindy Gallop, president of the Glass jury, who closed this year’s festival. With the title “Make love not porn — how tho change advertising for the better, fast”, Cindy recalled an exercise she had done at another edition of the Cannes Film Festival, in which she asked workshop participants to create an agency from scratch, but always responding to 3 essential criteria: how we will be more creative, how we will make more money and how we will be happier. While in the other edition of the festival she listened to the participants’ answers, in this one she tried to give her own answers to these questions. For her, who is a fan of simplicity as the most effective path to difficult problems, change begins by understanding the opportunities around what she called aspirationality. Advertising has always lived on creating aspirational images and the opportunity to be creative and make even more money from it is to reinvent which roles and images actually are or will be aspirational today and in the future and that break away from traditional stereotypes. This involves showing relationships between genders that project a partner among equals, it involves reviewing generational aspirations, pointing out that older people in reality do not want to be younger and that young people deep down want to be like their elders. And she concluded by saying that the key for the industry to evolve quickly is to take women seriously: “there is a lot of money to be made if we take women seriously. Women challenge the status quo because they have never been part of it.” Much applauded, she pointed out that it is still essential to end harassment in the industry and that what limits women in the industry is men’s insecurity. According to her, all of this can change the way everyone relates to advertising: “people have a love-hate affair with advertising. They hate advertising ‘in general’, but they love advertising ‘specifically’, after all, everyone has an advertisement that stands out, that they love. We need to get people not just to love advertising in specific, but back to loving it in general,” she said. A good message for the last lecture of the festival, which in itself is a declaration of love for advertising that needs to last not just for a week” João Gabriel, CSO at AlmaoBBDO“It’s difficult to say which talk I liked the most. Cannes is worth it for the whole, a whirlwind of references, insights and connections. You decide to watch a secret speaker, you get there and it’s Yusra Mardini, the Syrian swimmer who crossed the Mediterranean Sea escaping of the war and inspired the film Nadadoras. An example of life, strength and diversity. Below, see the impressive creative work behind Poor Creatures, in an unpretentious and reference-filled chat with the film’s design producers. conceptualize and find originality in every detail. Then watch a lecture on AI, feel the urgency to know more, take note of all the tools already available. Then join a storytelling masterclass with James Patterson, best-selling American author of novels. thriller and police. Between one thing and another, follow the lion-winning cases. Meet and talk to other professionals in our market and around the world. Go to a happy hour with a Liniker show, have fun and socialize. And that’s just one day in five that will leave you exhausted but absolutely inspired.” Gabriela Soares, CSO da Talent
