As we step into 2024, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the pinnacle of the advertising awards world, ushers in a wave of fresh changes. These updates are more than just tweaks; some are impactful shifts that will redefine how agencies and creatives showcase their work. In this blog post, we’ll unravel what these changes mean for you and how you can stay ahead in the Cannes game.
Kicking off with the ever-evolving Lions and their categories, here’s what’s fresh (or refreshed) for 2024:
Changes in the Lions
- Introducing the Luxury & Lifestyle Lions:
A new benchmark for luxury brands, focusing on impactful creative work and solutions in the luxury sector, celebrating innovation rooted in craftsmanship.
What It Means: A golden chance to highlight luxury brand work, with the inaugural year offering a blank slate for setting benchmarks, with the jury not being able to look at previous year’s winners. This Lion provides a unique chance to shape the future of luxury brand creativity.
- Expanded Innovation Lions:
Now embracing broader areas of creative solutions, including environmental, societal, and financial innovation, reflecting the diverse nature of modern challenges.
What It Means: A broader canvas for innovation, with a specific category for Brand-Led Innovation and opening the doors for societal and environmental innovation. Fintech companies should take note – they will get their own category to shine.
- Humour Takes The Spotlight:
A new category across various Lions recognizing the role of humour in branded communications, celebrating wit and satire.
What It Means: A special place for humour-infused campaigns. It’ll be intriguing to see how this influences other winners if the fun campaigns mingle in their own category – will that make it easier for non-humour campaigns, or will they just take home extra Lions?
- Social & Influencer Lions Refresh:
Expanded categories better acknowledge the role of content creators in brand messaging and digital influence.
What It Means: Content creators have officially entered the stage, being specifically named in the categories. Practically probably not a big change, but it means you don’t have to worry upsetting your creator by wanting to enter them in an influencer category.
- Restructured Audio & Radio Lions:
Reflecting the expanded role of audio beyond traditional radio, adapting to the digital transformation of audio content.
What It Means: Nothing really. More a name swap than a major change. Podcast creators, we are sorry, you still go by Audio.
- PR Lions Refresh:
The PR Lions have been updated to more accurately reflect contemporary PR practices, with a specific section for independent PR agencies and networks.
What It Means: Creating a specific area for PR agencies, this change ensures that their unique contributions are recognized without being overshadowed by broader creative agencies. If you are an PR agency, and want to enter these categories, you’ll need to contact the Cannes Lions team to receive your access code.
- Saying goodbye to Mobile Lions
Reflecting the ubiquitous nature of mobile creativity, the Mobile Lions have been retired, with mobile-first creativity still recognized across other categories.
What It Means: Probably not much, just one less Lion to win in. They had a good run, but it’s time to accept that we won’t unglue our hands from our phones anytime soon, and having considered mobile views in your campaigns is now a must, not something that you should be applauded for.
Changes in the Submission Format
While the Lion changes may not impact you, these changes certainly will mean changes for you, as they’ll affect every entry. Here’s what changed in terms of how the work will be submitted, and what this will mean for entrants:
- Mandatory Cultural Context Question:
To provide jurors with better context and understanding, a question about cultural relevance is now compulsory for every entry.
What It Means: More work. For everyone that’s involved in entering the awards. The compulsory, up to 250 word response will be asked in every Lion & every category. We’ve got the question so you don’t have to go looking for it:
“Please provide any cultural context that would help the Jury understand any cultural, national or regional nuances applicable to this work. – You should outline why this piece of work was created for this particular brand, in this market, at this particular moment in time, with all of the cultural and market conditions.”
Best to make your teams think about this question when they create the campaign!
- AI Disclosure Requirement:
A new mandatory question asks entrants to disclose AI usage in their work, ensuring informed and fair judging.
What It Means: Be prepared to disclose and elaborate on AI use in your entries when they ask you:
“Was an AI (Artificial Intelligence) tool used in the work or the entry materials?”
For now it’s probably more a data collecting exercise for the next Cannes trend report rather than affecting judging as it’s unclear if judges will see the answer, but just be prepared to know the answer to the question.
- Sustainability and DE&I Question Responses:
Entrants have the option to share their sustainability and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts with the jury, promoting transparency and conversation.
What It Means: This is a big question mark as to how this may affect the judging. Although likely to become mandatory in the future, for this year, they remain at your discretion – you can decide if you want judges to see your answer or not. This flexibility is beneficial if your campaign hasn’t focused on DE&I or sustainability, or if you’re under a tight deadline.
However, it’s wise to start weaving DE&I and sustainability themes into your campaigns proactively. The trend is clear: these factors are gaining importance. It remains to be seen if judges will favour, even unconsciously, entries that demonstrate a commitment to these areas over those that don’t.
This sums up all changes for 2024 and hopefully will help you to be better prepared for the 2024 Cannes Lions awards submissions.
Navigating these changes at Cannes Lions can be as challenging as it is exciting. At Awards Experts, we’re equipped to help you adapt and excel under these new guidelines. Whether it’s showcasing your luxury brand, leveraging humour effectively, or ensuring your social media campaigns stand out, we have the expertise to guide you.
🌟 Ready to Adapt and Shine at Cannes Lions 2024?
Reach out to us for expert advice on adapting to these changes and enhancing your chances of success. Connect with Awards Experts now, and let’s make Cannes 2024 your year of triumph!
