3 days ago
Creativity and clients at Cannes Lions 2025
I've got nothing against babies or rainforests but, in all honesty, they seem to do less for me than for my fellow judges. I was on the Innovation jury with some amazingly talented people who were intelligent, insightful and articulate. But they seemed to earnestly believe we should be saving the world more than selling to it. I know that sounds shallow but that's why I work in advertising rather than for Greenpeace or the United Nations – not that they would have me. That said, Cannes Lions 2025 showed me that both were possible.
I saw campaign after campaign – including 'Three Words' by Axa, 'Beer Retirement Account' by AB InBev, 'Drops of Hope' by Kimberly-Clark, 'Cars to Work' by Renault – all of which combined meaningful purpose with increased sales.
I saw several campaigns where you could appreciate the long-term benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), knowing that these problems could only have been identified – let alone, solved – by people from a variety of different backgrounds. Great examples of this include 'Caption with Intention' for the Chicago Hearing Society or 'Breastmilk Money' for Herconomy, a digital bank in Nigeria.
Cannes Lions 2025 felt like creativity was back at the heart of the best marketing campaigns. Or at least creative thinking took centre stage while performance marketing and adtech were back to lurking ominously in the shadows.
Metaphorically speaking, the big tech companies and media conglomerates were back to being the rich men in suits buying sparkling beverages in the club while advertising reverted to its traditional role of being the pretty ones enjoying these beverages for free. This year, advertising finally reclaimed the dance floor leaving the tech companies to enjoy the VIP booths.
It was a much-needed antidote to all the talk about artificial intelligence (AI) because, at least for now, it shows there is still a valid place in business for divergent thinking.
This year, across most juries, you could really notice the supremacy of the idea. Maybe it showed a growing maturity of the awards industry, or maybe it was a reflection of more diverse juries – not only creatives but also strategists, client servicing specialists and marketers.
However, executional craft played second fiddle to brave thinking. There was still great craft, but it was built on the solid foundation of great ideas. There was an attention to detail, but the best work executed it at scale – big, bold campaigns that were often years in the making.
The unique quirk of the Innovation jury was that the shortlisted work was presented on stage, in person. And this is where the rubber really hit the road. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) of household brands such as Phillips and Apple pitched their work along with their agency. And 10 minutes of passionate presentation can do more than a two-minute case study could ever do.
In-person presentations with the client also made it hard to scam the work and exaggerate the results. Unfortunately, this was another hot topic of conversation in the week following Cannes Lions 2025. My personal view is that there is far less of a scam across both regional and global awards. I always felt that 'gaming the awards' was misguidedly thought of as just a bit of fun – part of the game. But now there are a lot more people online and in-person willing to call it out.
Judging is intense. 12 hours locked in a dark room with unhealthy snacks and far too much soda. But my fellow jury members and I still took the time to question the validity of each idea – doing the necessary background checks when presented with sceptical information. AI may be helping to game some case studies, but it takes little effort to uncover fabrications.
So, to conclude, my personal observations from the jury room are:
AI is here, but using AI is not an idea – and it was surprising to see the number of entries that seemed to think it was.
Americans were everywhere. Maybe it's because they're the people with the most money or maybe they just wanted to get out of their country for a week, but it felt like at least half the attendees were from the US.
So were clients. Cannes Lions used to be about creatives and production companies. Now clients are central to every aspect – from the speeches to the jury.
Ambitious ideas that use creative thinking to solve business issues were in general winning the big awards. Ads about those ideas were sometimes good but just being a good ad didn't seem enough.
South American creativity, especially from Brazil and Colombia, is having its moment. They showed what can be done and how to have the most local relevance, irrespective of controversies surrounding certain topics.
Creativity is becoming more democratised. Agencies from Denmark and Thailand, Puerto Rico and Nigeria won big.
And those are my two cents.
By Seyoan Vela, Chief Creative Officer, Livingroom Dubai
