The agency’s standout win came with one Gold Lion in Sustainable Development Goals for Recipe for Change, a purpose-led campaign for Arla Foods that addressed food insecurity in Lebanon. The campaign transformed traditional home-cooked recipes into a scalable, community-first restaurant model, generating sustainable income and renewed purpose for local mothers.

Recipe for Change also secured a Silver Lion in Brand Experience & Activation and a Bronze Lion in Creative B2B, delivered in partnership with MCN sister agencies Current Global MENAT and Craft.

The agency’s creative work was further recognised with five Bronze Lions across multiple categories and client collaborations:

• One x Bronze in PR for Sponsored Balls, a campaign developed with the Testicular Cancer Society & Club Deportivo Leganés
• Two x Bronze in Digital Craft and Film for Read Better, created in collaboration with McCann Bristol and UM Central for Waterstones UK
• One x Bronze in Outdoor for Not for First Dates, for McDonald’s UAE, in partnership with MCN PR and media agencies: Weber Shandwick MENAT, UM, and Craft

In addition to its Lion wins, FP7McCann also contributed to 5 global wins, including a prestigious Titanium shortlist for Life Donor Card – MRM Germany that reimagines organ donation awareness in real-life moments. The agency also contributed to the Public Money ATM campaign with McCann Poland, further demonstrating the agency’s role in shaping ideas that go beyond borders.

This year, the UAE edition of Cannes Young Lions had creatives battling to come up with a digital solution to tackle the issue of food waste on behalf of ne’ma, the UAE’s National Food Loss and Waste Initiative

Mai Iskander, Editorial Manager and Owais Awan, Junior Art Director, were selected as the creative duo to represent Socialize in the prestigious tournament—taking home the Silver award for their beautifully simple solution to food waste, ‘Cart to Calendar’.

With a large portion of food waste in the UAE being attributed to overpurchasing groceries when using online grocery delivery platforms, Cart to Calendar offers up a way for shoppers to link all of their perishable items to their personal calendars, alerting them around the time their recently-purchased items are set to expire.

When the calendar notification is clicked, Cart to Calendar offers up tips on how to preserve or prolong those perishable items, with smart solutions such as pickling, freezing, dehydrating and more.

Effie will (subject to regulatory approval) join Ascential’s LIONS Division, which champions creative marketing that matters, driving growth through creative, effective marketing.

Ascential will also (subject to regulatory approval) embark on a long-term partnership with the not-for-profit organization, Effie Worldwide, Inc., which will be preserved and transformed into a new global foundation, The Effie LIONS Foundation, Inc. The foundation will be dedicated to educating the next generation of talent, offering training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community. Additionally, it will provide a home for LIONS' existing not-for-profit initiatives and provide access to some of the LIONS Division digital products, maximizing reinvestment in the industry.

In an exclusive interview with Traci Alford, Global CEO at Effie Worldwide, we delve further into the partnership and its motive.

What led to the decision to merge Effie with Ascential? Can you shed light on the strategic objectives that led to this move?

Our partnership with Ascential’s LIONS Division is coming at a time when the market is demanding businesses grow quicker and more nimbly than ever, putting increased pressure on marketers. Our new alliance has the potential to bring extraordinary value to our industry, and we are excited to explore how we can make an even greater case that effective and creative marketing plays a vital role in helping all organizations succeed.

Effie is a powerful, global brand that launched over 55 years ago. With this partnership, we are ideally positioned to accelerate our evolution and extend our offer to the benefit of marketers globally. We are extremely passionate about the Effie Academy and Effie Insights program designed to equip generations of marketers with the skill, tools and confidence needed for success.

At the highest level, Cannes Lions and Effie exist to make marketers and marketing better, and we can achieve more together than alone.

How does this merger align with Effie's long-term vision and mission? What’s in store for all stakeholders connected with the organization globally?

Creativity and Effectiveness are inextricably linked, and the marketing industry’s demand to understand how to deliver both with excellence is only growing. No two organizations in the world are more committed to the power of creativity to drive marketing effectiveness. By joining forces, we’ll bring the interconnected worlds of creativity and marketing effectiveness closer together.

There are synergies to be found, not just in awards, but across our advisory and training programs, digital products and data-fueled insight programs. Through this partnership, we will provide marketing leaders worldwide with the data and evidence they need to elevate their marketing programs and argue for investment in effective and creative marketing that matters.

Moreover, the establishment of The Effie LIONS Foundation has the potential to play a critical role in shaping the future health of the industry. The Foundation will offer tools and training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community. It will also offer progressive programs to support a diverse range of individuals to develop essential skills for entering and thriving in the industry.

With Effie and Cannes Lions now under the same umbrella, how do you envision the relationship between these two most crucial events evolving?

We are both globally respected organizations, but with complementary structures. Effie has 59 partner teams on the ground, and are built from the ground up, with deep local expertise and data from across 125+ markets. We will honor our independent national and regional awards at the local level, but there will also be potential to contribute to the central global stage that is the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Can we expect any changes or synergies in the way Effie and Cannes Lions are organized or executed? How will this impact the industry’s approach to recognizing marketing effectiveness and creativity?

Cannes Lions and Effie will continue to operate as independent Awards. The Cannes Lions Awards benchmark creative excellence, whilst Effie’s Awards benchmark marketing effectiveness. While there is naturally some crossover in customers, the partnership is about strengthening both brands.

There’s a degree of confusion in the industry regarding the merger. What would you say to industry professionals who are concerned about potential overlaps or conflicts between Effie and Cannes Lions?

Joining Ascential doesn’t change Effie’s purpose, what we do, or how we do it. Our ability to deliver at scale becomes stronger with the backing and investment of Ascential. We will continue to nurture and grow the Effie Awards program globally, expand the reach of the Effie Academy and deliver more insights from our Case Library than ever before.

The integrity of all of our national Effie programs will remain the same. Our process and standards will remain unchanged and independent. Effie partners will continue to run their local programs as they are now, committed to championing the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness.

How will the individual identities and purposes of the Effie and Cannes Lions be preserved under Ascential? What measures are being taken to ensure they complement rather than compete with each other?

Like Cannes Lions, Effie is a heritage brand that launched in 1968. Both Ascential and the brands within the LIONS Division share a common understanding of the industry, and audiences, and have relationships and networks in common. We are both respected globally, and Effie has 59 teams on the ground, running local and regional programs with a judging network of 25,000.

The Effie brand will remain. In terms of integration, we will be looking to build connections across our teams to ensure our customers benefit from all of our collective expertise across events, insights, and advisory.

What do you believe this merger means for the global marketing and advertising industry? How do you see it influencing trends in marketing effectiveness and creative recognition?

We have a real opportunity, as the #1 effectiveness and #1 creativity organizations, to share our expertise and meaningfully explore the interconnectivity between the two while maximizing our capabilities in support of marketers everywhere.

Effie Academy has enormous potential, for example. We have a fully-fledged Effie Academy dedicated to fostering an industry-wide culture of effectiveness. Its programs equip marketers with the tools, knowledge, and skills they need to succeed at every career stage. The US is our most mature market, and with this partnership, we’ll be able to press fast forward on our plans to scale it globally. This is an enormous opportunity for us and will benefit marketers globally.

We’ll also find synergies in our data with the LIONS Division which will allow us to dissect the role creativity plays in driving effectiveness overall. With these brands in one home, we will better understand key drivers of growth and ultimately help businesses succeed.

How do you see the merger impacting the future of marketing awards and the evolution of industry standards on a global scale?

Our new alliance has the potential to bring extraordinary value and elevate our industry, by bringing a greater understanding of how effective and creative marketing plays a vital role in helping organizations succeed. It will allow us to leverage our unique global reach- Effie's extensive network in over 125 countries and LIONS's established influence in the creative community- to enable a richer exchange of insights and data to help marketers better understand what drives growth and success on a global scale.

Effie will (subject to regulatory approval) join Ascential’s LIONS Division, which champions creative marketing that matters, driving growth through creative, effective marketing.

Effie leads, inspires, and champions the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness globally, hosting the world's largest, most robust, and most prestigious marketing effectiveness awards. Effie provides insights from over 125 markets, in addition to tools and training.

Ascential will also (subject to regulatory approval) embark on a long-term partnership with the not-for-profit organization, Effie Worldwide, Inc., which will be preserved and transformed into a new global Foundation, The Effie LIONS Foundation, Inc. (“the Foundation”). The Foundation will be dedicated to educating the next generation of talent, offering training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community. Additionally, the Foundation will provide a home for LIONS' existing not-for-profit initiatives and provide access to some of the LIONS Division digital products, maximizing reinvestment in the industry.

Philip Thomas, CEO, Ascential, commented, “The coming together of LIONS and Effie is a powerful testament to the fact that effectiveness and creativity in marketing are inextricably linked. All enlightened businesses know that creative, effective marketing drives growth. This historic partnership will complement the insights and intelligence on marketing and creative effectiveness LIONS already offers via WARC, The Work, and Contagious, providing marketing leaders worldwide with the data and evidence they need to make the case for creative marketing that matters. Meanwhile, the creation of The Effie LIONS Foundation, Inc. will educate and inspire our industry, and broaden the opportunities available to everyone to build a career in creativity and marketing.”

Traci Alford, President and CEO, of Effie Worldwide, commented, “We are excited to join LIONS with such a complementary, yet distinct, portfolio of brands. Closer collaboration between Effie, as the definitive marketing effectiveness benchmark globally, and the LIONS brands is an exciting prospect for the industry as our ability to share insights and find synergies in our data will help to dissect the role creativity plays in driving marketing effectiveness overall. Together we will be able to better understand the key drivers of growth and ultimately help all businesses succeed.”

Headquartered in New York, with offices in Beijing and the UK, Effie has a network of 59 partners covering over 125 markets. Effie will continue to be led by Traci Alford, President and CEO, of Effie Worldwide.

The ‘age of average’, a trend by which everything starts to look the same, poses fresh challenges for brands that want to stand out. A very significant takeaway from the 71st edition of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is that brands might succumb to this crisis. Analysis of assets by IPSOS and Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR) found that 65% of them have weak to no associations with the brands that pay for them. In this light, Karen Nelson-Field, Founder and CEO of Amplified Intelligence, the rise of short-attention media formats is making it harder for companies to stand out:  85% of ads do not meet the attention memory threshold of 2.5 seconds. Anything below that threshold will not drive salience and is essentially wasted spend, resulting in more ads getting misattributed to competitors. 

Another research from eatbigfish, System 1, and consultant Peter Field, found that for “dull” ads (those that evoke no emotional response) to elicit the same market share growth as more emotional or interesting advertising, brands would have to spend an additional $228 billion in the US or £10m in the UK.

Among other findings, WARC reveals other takeaways:

The 21st-century case for brand-building

Digital-native firms are leaning into brand. 

Brand for digital startups: Laura Jones, CMO, Instacart, provided a masterclass in brand-building for Silicon Valley. She advocates merging performance and brand budgets, and unifying the approach to metrics.

Brands for ‘dual audiences’: For digital brands that act as platforms or intermediaries, Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, CMO of Doordash highlighted the importance of brand investment. For Doordash the focus is on both customers and merchants.

Pecedent, not persuasion: Karen Crum, Partner and EMEIA Brand Strategy Leader, Strategy and Transactions, EY, called for better clarity on the definition of brand, saying that marketers can argue for brand-building based on precedent, rather than persuasion. Persuading people is hard. Showing them precedent is easier. A fresh focus on pricing as the outcome of brand-building is helping to make this case, according to Dr Grace Kite, founder of Magic Numbers.

Start with the customer

Among the above-stated concerns, the question arises – how to burst the marketing bubble? The answer lies in better research and going back to the customer as the source of truth.

Market orientation matters: Mark Ritson, Founder, Mini MBA, argues that marketers have lost sight of the customer. When marketers properly understand the consumer, factors like salience become very important. 

Between aspiration and reality: Yael Cesarkas, SVP, Executive Strategy Director at R/GA San Francisco, declared that briefs are saturated with unoriginal insights, and that crucial consumer insights exist between the gap between the customer’s aspiration and their reality.

The paradox of synthetic data: Jon Lombardo and Peter Weinberg, co-founders of Evidenza, claim that synthetic data opens access to cheaper, faster research, even deeper insights about target audiences through digital twins of audiences in B2B and B2C. There are questions about accuracy and bias, but so far the techniques look promising in spaces where research is difficult, such as B2B.

Commerce lays claim to the future of media

Forecasts from WARC suggest retail media will grow 13.7% year-on-year globally to $153.3 billion. 

Media’s newest face: Retail media has attracted growing attention from brands eager to connect with shoppers near the point of purchase. The growing presence in Cannes of ‘commerce media’ owners, described as content-free sellers of advertising operating beyond conventional retail environments, like Uber, Chase, and United Airlines signals the growing power of data-rich companies in the media space.

Brands reappraise structures: The arrival of commerce media adds complexity to planning and blurs the boundary between brand-building and performance. Colgate Palmolive’s North America CMO, Diana Haussling, said the firm had striven to break down silos and build a new ‘consumer experience and growth’ division to handle cross-media budgets spanning traditional and retail media.  

Creative, media and commerce converge: Combining discovery, connection and commerce, Jill Toscano, Head of Media, Walmart, explained how their fully shoppable campaign ‘RomCommerce’ was designed to be watched in two-minute segments on TikTok, displaying more than 300 products available to click and buy in the content.

The Middle East brought back home 25 lions across various lions. Impact BBDO Dubai bagged another Grand Prix for Good another year in a row for the UN Women's Child Wedding Cards campaign, which also won a Gold and a Bronze. 

Publicis Groupe Middle East further raised the bar for regional creativity bringing home 7 lions across three categories. Leo Burnett Dubai's Protectasbih for Saudia Airlines bagged a Gold and a Bronze on the first night in the Health and Wellness category. Other winning campaigns under the creative agency's helm came from entries under the Industry Craft category led by Jury President, Kalpesh Patankar, Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett Dubai. The Great Indian Dunk – a campaign executed by Leo Burnett in partnership with NBA India won a Gold, another campaign from NBA under the agency's creatorship – Jordan 23 bagged a Silver; Protype Studio's Zael – The Disappearing Font received a Bronze. Saatchi & Saatchi swept – a Silver under the craft category for its client Kinokuniya's Fake Readers; and a Bronze for their Nana's Taboo Totes under the Social & Influencer Lions.

Kalpesh Patankar, Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett ME told Communicate, "It's always a pleasure to be at Cannes, but to serve as Jury President – and that too for a category like Industry Craft – was the highest honour. It stood testament to everything we have achieved as Leo Burnett Dubai, as Publicis Groupe ME, and as a MENA region collectively becoming a global creative powerhouse. The work, as it is every year, was a refreshing and rewarding commentary on culture, creativity, and the future of our industry. There were some clear trends across the world, such as ideas being born from cultural moments in which brands could play a meaningful role, or brands choosing to co-create with their audiences and being brave enough to allow them to re-imagine the brand through new and unique lenses, and even the championing of real, human craft in a world of artificial intelligence and machine-made content."

FP7McCann earned a Silver Lion for its work with The Testicular Cancer Society (group agencies involved were UM & MAGNA Global). The agency also took home 5 Bronze Lions: 3 for McDonald’s (media: UM Dubai, PR: Weber Shandwick MENAT), 1 for Puck Arla's infamous Selfless Shelves campaign, and 1 for Ketch-up Insurance, Heinz. Both wins for Puck and Heinz were achieved through a close collaboration between FP7McCann and sister MCN PR agency – Current Global. 

Expressing his gratitude, Tarek Miknas, CEO of FP7McCann said, “On behalf of the entire team, I extend my heartfelt thanks to our clients for their collaboration and boldness in creating impactful and pioneering work. I am immensely proud of our teams for their unwavering commitment to placing creativity at the core of our business impact for clients.” 

Organon's Mis(s)diagnosed – a campaign aimed at raising awareness around silent symptoms of a heart attack in women, executed and entered by Mullenlowe MENA and McCann Health Dubai received a Bronze Pharma Lion. Another win under Impact BBDO Dubai's portfolio includes a Bronze Lion under the PR Lions for Annahar Newspaper's AI President.

BMW Group Middle East's BMW IJACK also grabbed a Bronze under the Media Lions being the only one representing the region in the category. Film Lions presented one winner from the region: Floward's The Mobster won a Silver.

TikTok is building for this era of creative bravery with a suite of tools and solutions to help brands create at scale, build meaningful connections with audiences, and achieve the best results. From bringing their brand personalities to life through the power of music and sound to utilizing creators to tell their brand stories with TikTok One, and harnessing Symphony AI creative tools to maximize their creativity, marketers need to embrace new creative tools and technology to help them unlock creative at scale.

This year at Cannes Lions, TikTok called the global creative industry to embrace creative freedom by showcasing the power of community-driven experiences with brand activations and insightful panel discussion – logging the term, Creative Bravery – a theory fueled by curiosity, imagination, vulnerability, and courage.

Creative Bravery Starts with Culture

The way consumers engage with content is changing. Media fragmentation and the speed of culture create an attention challenge and creative bravery is key to cutting through.

TikTok sits at the intersection between culture and creativity, giving life to this Creative Bravery mindset. From acting as the window to cultural moments like the holy month of Ramadan to catapulting products into virality, TikTok influences daily conversations and new trends. On TikTok, creativity sparks more creativity and inspires new forms of storytelling.

Blending curiosity, imagination, vulnerability, and courage, brands demonstrating Creative Bravery on TikTok will build deeper community connections. The ones that will see the most success will pique global curiosities, flip traditional story arcs, and deepen trust with their audiences. While stories can stand alone on TikTok, part of the fun for audiences is to thread unexpected stories together in gripping and surprising ways.

Brands need to be bold enough to be vulnerable and let audiences into the full process, evolving their mindset to meet these new expectations. Audiences are seeking engagement beyond a one-time sale. They're looking for brands to lead positive societal change and establish clear brand trust and values.

"Entertainment has fundamentally shifted. Consumers have more choice than ever before and are leaning into entertainment for discovery in all areas. For brands to break through on TikTok, they need to shift from occasional displays of Creative Bravery to infusing it into daily behavior and strategies. Those who embrace such boldness will be the ones who ultimately win big."

"At this year's Cannes Lions, we are urging marketers to embrace vulnerability and push creative bounds, exploring how new creative tools and technology will enable creative at scale whilst driving business impact," said Blake Chandlee, President, of Global Business Solutions.

Communities and creators alike are calling upon brands to participate alongside them and, importantly, to keep it real. Authenticity is what fuels content on TikTok and if brands are to bridge the gap that exists between them and communities, they must seek to shatter conventional advertising norms and build authentic connections with audiences.

TikTok has democratized discovery, allowing for a greater diversity of creators to stand out and find success on the platform. Centered around co-creation and participation, brands can collaborate with this diverse universe of creators and foster authentic connections with communities.

Creative Bravery, at Scale

Brands need to embrace creative freedom and experimentation and create at the speed of culture to thrive in this new ecosystem.

Solutions that make it easier to create. Save time and scale faster with expert partners & tools:

• TikTok One: Your all-in-one TikTok creative platform that gives brands access to nearly 2 million creators, discover top agency partners and leverage our creative tools. With TikTok All-In-One, all the resources needed to implement and scale a successful TikTok campaign are at your fingertips— with a single log-in.
• Symphony: Symphony is TikTok's suite of ad solutions powered by generative AI. With Symphony, businesses of all sizes, creators and agencies can blend human imagination with AI-powered efficiency to help scale content development, creativity, and productivity on TikTok.
  • Symphony Creative Studio is our generative AI-powered video generator. Creative Studio helps to speed up TikTok content creation with AI-enabled features, generating TikTok-fit videos from just a few inputs.
  • Symphony Assistant is an AI assistant that empowers advertisers with creative knowledge to easily implement their TikTok campaigns.
  • Symphony Ads Manager Integration is a TikTok Ads Manager integration that embeds into the creative process to automatically generate, fix, and optimize TikTok ads for better performance.
  • Symphony Digital Avatars are AI-generated representations of real people that breathe life into your content.  Created using authorized footage of real human beings and TikTok's cutting-edge in-house AI technology, avatars possess a rich array of physical movements, facial expressions, languages, and voiceovers.
  • Symphony AI Dubbing is a translation tool that allows creators and brands to connect with global audiences and make their message more inclusive and impactful.
  • Symphony Collective: Industry Advisory Board is an advisory board to help facilitate important discussions around the development and use of AI in creative marketing. The board is comprised of a diverse range of content creators and thought leaders to provide feedback about TikTok's AI marketing solutions and discuss the industry at large.
  • Adobe Express: We have expanded our partnership with Adobe and they are now a badged Creative TikTok Marketing Partner. We have also integrated the TikTok Commercial Music Library into Adobe Express, giving brands access to more than a million top and trending songs directly within Adobe Express to quickly create, score and publish high-impact TikTok content.

The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity today announced 2024 shortlists across three categories: Innovation Lions, Glass: The Lion for Change, and The Dan Wieden Titanium Lions.

Innovation Lions celebrate work that is "innovative, technologically elaborate, and solution-oriented work. The solutions can include tools, products, models, platforms, other forms of ad tech, and even new technology that might be used in the process of building a campaign or in the campaign."

Whereas, the Glass Lions celebrate culture-shifting creativity. The category recognized work that "implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality and prejudice through the conscious representation of gender in advertising."

The Titanium Lions category rewards work that presents "game-changing creativity."

In its first round of shortlists, Cannes elected 60 shortlists across all the three categories. 

The Middle East made its feature in the Titanium and Glass for Change categories. 

Arla's Selfless Shelves campaign, entered by FP7 McCann has been shortlisted in the Titanium Lions category. The campaign aimed to inspire consumers to find new, fun, and practical ways to reuse their Puck glass jars, addressing the limited glass recyclability within the MENA region. This initiative aligns with the 12th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, which focuses on responsible consumption and production. By extending the campaign to small business owners, the brand invited women from across the region to share homemade recipes, providing them a platform to unleash their creativity while being more environmentally conscious.

Impact BBDO's Child Wedding Cards for UN Women Pakistan made it to the Glass Lions for Change shortlist. The initiative left a powerful message asking young girls to draw their wedding cards, calling the nation to cherish childhood and act against child marriages. 

Unilever Announced as the Creative Marketer of the Year for 2024

The honorary accolade is presented to a marketer that has amassed a body of iconic, Lion-winning work over a sustained period, with Unilever establishing a reputation for producing brave, creative, and innovative marketing solutions.

Unilever was last honored as Creative Marketer of the Year in 2010 and has amassed hundreds of Lions in the following years. At last year’s Cannes Lions, Unilever was awarded Lions across a number of its brands including Dove, Hellmann’s, Dirt Is Good (known as Persil, Skip, and OMO), Magnum, Vaseline, Marmite, and Pot Noodle.

In 2023, Unilever’s largest brand, Dove, was awarded the Media Lions Grand Prix for its ‘#TurnYourBack’ campaign by Ogilvy, London / DAVID, Madrid. ‘#TurnYourBack’ was deemed by Media Lions Jury President, Christian Juhl, to be “a timely example of how our industry can use the power of media to protect young people and empower them to reject the pressure they feel to conform to artificial standards and be confident in their true, unfiltered selves.”

Unilever was last honored as Creative Marketer of the Year in 2010 and has amassed hundreds of Lions in the following years.

2024's Shortlisting Jury Members Announced – 12 members to represent MENA

Earlier this month, Cannes Lions announced the global line-up of experts that will be shortlisting creative work this June. Experts were chosen across 75 markets, representing the global industry's leading talent from a diverse range of disciplines. Following the announcement of Kalpesh Patankar, Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett appointment as the Jury President of the Industry Craft category, the region maintains its hold in the Shortlisting Jury with 11 experts representing the UAE, and one KSA – with a total of 12 recouping for the MENA region at the global world cup for creativity. 

Serena Abi Aad, Creative Director and Film Director will be representing the Films Lions jury. Firas Medrows, Executive Creative Director, DDB UAE will be joining the Outdoor Lions. This year, the print and publishing lions will present Mohamed Bareche, Executive Creative Director at Horizon FCB from the region. Rodrigo Scapolan, Creative Director, TBWARAAD Dubai will be a part of Film Craft Lions, and Prerna Mehra, Creative Director and Head of Art and Design at MullenLowe MENA. Zahir Mirza, Executive Creative Director at C2 UAE is joining the Engagement Track for 2024. The PR Lions will present Shafaq Tariq, Chief Creative Officer – PR & Comms across PK & MENA at Walnut Communications. Akanksha Goel, CEO and Founder of Socialize / We Are Social will represent the UAE in the Social & Influence Lions Jury, and Shereen Mostafa, Head of Production at Publicis Groupe ME – the Entertainment Track. Jarrad Pitts, Creative Director of Consulum, has been chosen to be part of the Experience Track for this year. 

Amr El Kalaawy, Regional Managing Director across KSA and Bahrain for FP7 McCann, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain proudly boasts the Kingdom as part of the Strategy Track this year.

Cannes Lions Presents Lifetime Achievement Award – The Lion of St Mark, to Jacques Séguéla

France’s foremost advertising pioneer and former co-vice-chairman/chief creative officer at Havas will be honored on stage in June. With a career spanning more than 60 years in the industry, Séguéla has produced consistently iconic work for brands like Air France, Apple, Carrefour, Citroën, Louis Vuitton and Microsoft, as well as highly successful political campaigns and authoring numerous best-selling books on advertising.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Co-Founder and CEO of Rappler – Maria Ressa Honored as 2024 Cannes LionHeart

The LionHeart, regarded as one of the festival’s most prestigious awards – was presented to Maria Ressa this year. The award is given to a person who has harnessed their position to make a significant and positive difference to the world around us. Ressa is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rappler, the top digital-only news site leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler’s CEO, Ressa has led their battle for truth and democracy and has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail 10 times to stay free. Her most recent book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator, was released in November 2022 and has been translated into 20 languages, with more to come.

Expressing her regard for the accolade, Maria Ressa told Cannes Lions,  “We’re standing on the rubble of the world that was: where technology, violence and war challenge our humanity. The Cannes LionHeart reminds us that imagination and creativity, sparking empathy, are crucial to get us through these dark times; that power and money are not enough; and that inspiration ignites the good in each of us. Thank you for recognizing the work of Rappler, where we continue to fight against the odds to help create the world we want.”

It’s the Cannes Lions. It’s a big deal, a privilege, an honor, and a responsibility. I am thankful and very grateful to the hundreds of people I’ve worked with over my career – every individual who has played a role in my journey to this position today. Everyone I've ever collaborated with to create a good piece of work is a part of this moment with me today.

In the image above – Kalpesh Patankar, Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett Middle East

We know you've been on various jury panels – but the responsibilities of a Cannes Lions Jury President are bigger than that. How are you planning on preparing for the same?

I have always approached every opportunity to be on an awards jury, as a responsibility. Thousands of creatives from around the world entrust the handful of people on that jury to recognize their ideas and pick them to be celebrated as some of the best work in the industry. Being Jury President is just about taking that responsibility a step further – and making sure that I can be the truest champion of truly great work in the room, and serve as the guide rails for picking the best work with the right context, fairness, and objectivity.

As someone who's always been at the helm of creating outstanding campaigns, how do you think the definition of creativity has evolved in MENA's advertising industry?

Be it in the MENA region, or anywhere else, the definition of creativity hasn’t evolved – and never will. Creativity is bigger than the advertising industry. Creativity is the act of having an idea, and then putting in the work – the craft and the love – to give that idea its ultimate expression, in the best form of it that you’re capable of. In the MENA advertising industry, that still holds. Creativity, at the heart of it, is still about having a powerful idea. The way that idea is executed and brought to life may have evolved through the emergence of new technologies, AI now, and so much more – but across it all, it’s the Idea & Craft that elevates work and has the power to give it a few extra moments of attention in a constantly scrolling & swiping world.

The region has been doing exceptionally well on various global platforms – Cannes being the World Cup of the industry is no exception. What are you expecting from the region at Cannes this year?

Onwards and upwards – as they say! Every region has its recognizable style – be it the roundabout twists and turns of Thai advertising or the Super Bowl-esque grandeur of North American advertising. I’m looking forward to our region further establishing that recognizable 'personality' for the work that represents us as a culture, and a creative community. I want the world to see that distinct 'MENA' advertising. Beyond that, I am also eager to see more representation at the festival, from jury roles and festival attendees to the work being submitted and recognized. I would love for more Grand Prixes to be bagged by work from the region, putting the region right up there at the forefront of things when it comes to creativity and technology.

As Jury President, what criteria will you prioritize when evaluating entries from around the world, and how do you intend to ensure a fair and balanced judging process?

While the idea will always be the ultimate criterion, the sub-text also matters. There are hundreds of pieces of work coming from across the world – each one representing the culture, realities, and nuances of its region. All those diverse tonalities expressing creativity in their own unique way, teaching us something new, and opening our eyes to fresh perspectives – for us to then decide, which one has the potential to become the next benchmark for the world. Can the world adopt a craft technique from Japan, an innovative solution from Latin America, or an entertainment format from India? And then, there's also the fact that we live in conflicted times. We have to keep in mind sensitivities, socio-economic climates, and so much more. It all factors in to ensure that there is a balanced and fair process for our judging.

What are the challenges you're expecting to face as the Jury President? How do you strategize to overcome them?

A jury room is a collection of creative stalwarts from around the world, and from across various creative industries. It's important to understand their perspectives, keep their background as context, and consciously navigate all their unique points of view to ultimately ensure that the right work is being championed. And when it comes to work as well, there's a fine line to be towed. We all know it's no cakewalk to sell big, bold campaigns to global name brands, and it's important to recognize that when celebrating big work that has managed to overcome the challenges to see the light of day. But at the same time, it's critical to ensure that the smaller entrants, the new startups – don't get swept aside or overshadowed by the scale of the big campaigns. Once again, it comes down to celebrating great ideas, and everything else will fall into place.

How do you believe your cultural background and experiences in the MENA region will influence your approach to judging creativity on a global scale at Cannes Lions?

Throughout my career, I have worked across the Indian sub-continent, Singapore, Asia, UAE, KSA, and MENA, and have had the good fortune to be working with global as well as local brands and wonderful creatives from around the world. So my cultural background, experience, and influences span across multiple continents, countries, and cultures. The privilege of having had such opportunities and exposure, allows me to understand the nuanced processes and challenges involved in creating work across different markets – and it has always played a role in helping me connect with the work while judging it.

Finally, how do you plan to leverage your position as Jury President to elevate the visibility and recognition of creative talent from the MENA region within the international advertising community?

Becoming the Jury President for Craft – from the MENA region – is the first step to recognition for the region's work and craft. We're already there and this opportunity is a recognition of the trust that the global industry has in the Middle East's creatives. But at the end of the day, my responsibility will be to champion the best ideas and the best work, irrespective of where they come from. I do sincerely hope though, that my representation as the Jury President will serve as inspiration to more creatives from the region to push for the best and achieve everything they dream of.