2024 Cannes Lions AHAs !

What a week at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity !

This was an amazing privilege to participate to last week’s edition in panels, discuss with key Agency partners, dialogue with Industry peers, exchange with forward-looking Consultants, and reconnect with my P&G / Henkel alumni friends.

I was (once again) very inspired by some of the most brilliant minds of our industry, who are shaping the Future of Creativity, Advertising and Communication, and could experience the revolution happening in Brand building. Here are some of my key highlights:

?? Human super-charges AI: Artificial Intelligence is already essential in our Creative arsenal, enhancing personalization or creativivity, even driving cost down. This year’s discussions and use cases underscored that AI alone fails, but is unbeatable when guided by human creativity. In short, “AI doesn’t replace jobs, AI automates tasks”.

?? Leveraging AI effectively and efficiently is a People agenda: some of us might recall the arrival of digital in the early 00’s, same applies here: traditional consumer-facing companies need an AI “translator” who is equally fluent in technology and business.?He bridges complex technology operations and the rest of the organization. Therefore the key question to ask ourselves is “can AI help my team with this issue ?”.?

???Olympic Flame as a symbol that emotion prevails: we had the privilege to attend the passage of the Olympic Flame on the Cannes Croisette during the Lions’ week, and all of a sudden everybody stopped, gathered and cheered. This was a perfect example that emotions and the human element remains crucial: successful and winning campaigns evoke emotions, have unique storytelling, and ultimately make you connect genuinely.

?? Brand building is alive ! Winning brands had a Purpose that connected intuitively with end consumers. Given current societal and geopolitical context, this year’s winning campaigns demonstrated that purpose-driven marketing is more than a trend, it’s a necessity on the backbone of Sustainability, Diversity and Inclusion. Strong brands have more than ever the duty to have a point of view and connect at a deeper level with people who see the world similarly based on shared ideology.

?? Last but not least, I was personally touched that Cannes Lions 2024 showed us how Creativity is a force of change for the better, can inspire all of us to connect more deeply, think bigger and broader, be more empathetic and inclusive, to finally act more responsibly… together !