Cannes Lions: Tips for Submissions

“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win” – Zig Ziglar

Disclaimer: This article provides some useful suggestions for how to construct a Creative Data Lions submission. The ideas herein are based on the authors’ experiences as 2017 Creative Data category judges. There are no assurances that the judging methodologies and criteria for the 2018 Creative Data Lions (and beyond) will be the same as they were in 2017. We do however believe that our observations and suggestions are likely to be quite inherently timeless.

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As we approach the time of year where the advertising industry and top marketers begin to reflect on their previous year’s work and prepare submissions for upcoming awards, we have assembled some important suggestions formulated from our personal judging experience as members of the 2017 Cannes Lions Creative Data panel.

While still a relatively new industry capability and Lions award, the Creative Data Lions is one of the most rapidly growing and in demand categories as it connects data, information, analysis, insights, and data science for new levels of messaging and creativity.

Most brands today are actively seeking to understand how to best use their internal data and couple it with various forms of external information to drive greater messaging effectiveness, market engagement, customer stickiness, and a host of other critical actions and attributes. Those companies who are contemplating entries for the Lions’ Creative Data and other similar categories should consider formulating their submissions in the best possible way by keeping the following tips in mind - these were part of how we were evaluating, judging, and selecting the 2017 Creative Data Lions winners.

1. Data Must Be Uniquely Used – What is the unique way in which you have leveraged available sources of data to derive a new and innovative approach to solve the problem you were faced with? This could include a fresh look at how to use your company’s data, perhaps mashed with external data, and/or leveraging synthetic information created by cleverly combining or algorithmically transforming data in ways not previously done before. Obviously, there are limits to your work’s uniqueness, but it’s not pure innovation or novelty that are being judged. Rather it’s the specific way in which the data is applied to whatever particular business or marketing objective is being highlighted for its inventiveness in your submission materials. The judges are not just looking for a “show and tell”, but are watching for how data uniquely addresses your specific objective. For example, was there a problem that allowed for a new or reformulated data-driven approach or a new type of data to be gathered, aggregated, or manufactured, that was directly applicable to the specific task at hand? And, perhaps most importantly, how was that data creatively leveraged to carry the idea end-to-end through the entire campaign – from activation, to execution, and ultimately to results?
2. Data Must Inform Creative Ideas – Often times we saw an “insight” included in a submission but it was clear that the data or metrics provided were after-thoughts and were added merely to support the Lions submission materials and/or to validate a pre-existing concept. In this Lions category, how data plays a specific and creative role in the formulation of the concept should be central to the submission. The clearer the articulation of how insights are derived from data and later fueled through creative thinking, the more likely the judges will favor the submission. In situations where an insight didn’t emerge or wasn’t clearly articulated, it can be advantageous to highlight the data’s creative role versus retroactively forcing an insight into the concept. We saw many entries where data was certainly present but seemed lonely or wandered aimlessly in the overall story.
3. Validating the Data and Results Proved to be Effective - As you think about how to best summarize and tell the entire story, it can be easy to have the data driven insight or hypothesis get lost as you explain the campaign activation and outcomes. We repeatedly saw entries where there was a clearly articulated insight or data-driven nugget that drove a campaign, but the supporting metrics and the summarization about efficacy fell short - sometimes woefully so. Ideally, regardless of whether the campaign itself proved to be ‘successful’, or not, you should still highlight the deep and meaningful learnings from the data and the scientific work that was completed.
4. Avoid Vanity Metrics - When thinking about what outcomes to highlight and the objective, quantitative, aspects to include, it’s easy to fall back on the basic metrics that we’ve all grown accustomed to – impressions, click through rate (CTR), social mentions, ‘likes’, conversions, sentiment indices, etc. While emphasis on such tried and true metrics seemingly add to further the case, they often have the opposite effect on the judges. When submissions include these types of common metrics it often leads to the judges feeling as if they must make a major guess as to if there was actually a substantial, meaningful impact on consumer behavior or if the solution was merely a clever “PR stunt”. Avoiding these easily understood and standardized metrics altogether isn’t necessary, however, just be sure not to use them as the primary focus of your messaging and blend them into a holistic assessment of your end-to-end effort and results.
5. Force Fitting Mentions of Hot Technology Was Tiresome – Some of the most clever and noteworthy entries didn’t make elaborate references to specific hardware, software, or the most currently hyped tools. As judges, after seeing so many extremely diverse entries highlight how their solutions were “Powered by XXXXXX”, we tried hard to understand if the use of such systems or tools was actually differentiating to the submission at all. While the vendors of the products may find it gratifying to be included in the story, as judges, the ubiquity of such mentions seemed instead to potentially be making up for a creative data solution that was trying to take advantage of a “hot new” tool for market validation. However, if you feel such descriptions will add to or clarify your story, don’t go out of your way to avoid such descriptions, instead be sure it is unambiguous why your incorporation of such tools was critical to your idea.

Here are some additional tips to consider when formulating submissions:

• Stick to the Facts and Be Sure They are Credible: Results of the entry need to be clearly, articulately, and succinctly communicated and well-documented. Plus, they need to be credible and believable in a meaningful way. For example, stating that something had 1 billion exposures might be mathematically true, but may not be credible in a pragmatic sense. We saw multiple entries that had stated metrics where some extrapolation of the results implied that more people were exposed to the concept than actually even live in that country.
• Make Your Documentation Succinct: In 2017, we had to judge approximately 800 entries in a relatively short amount of time and we wanted to be fair and thorough to all entrants. Most entries consisted of a several minute video, pitch sheets, varied documentation, infographics, and/or a variety of other supporting materials. However, not all the materials were crafted in a way that were sensitive to the enormity of the judging task and the amount of evaluative time available. Rather, many entries used materials that were wordy, unnecessarily complex, required too much time to invest in attempting comprehension, or seemed to be repurposed from existing documentation or other award submissions. You don’t want to be a victim of judge fatigue.
• The Title and the Summary Needs to be Brief and Memorable: As previously stated, we individually evaluated many hundreds of entries and then discussed them as a group. We needed to rely on a title that everyone could remember and that was clearly linked to the brief summary of what the solution was all about. When documenting the concept in the summary, every single word matters – make the context clear, use bullets, avoid jargon, and be precise in your language. Expect healthy skepticism from the judges that the submission is grounded in facts and data supported thinking – generally, we approached every entry from the assumption that it was not a creative use of data and we used the submitted material to shift our judgement to the affirmative.
• Finding the Right Fit: Read the subcategory definition carefully for your entry – don’t just check the box. While it’s possible that your entry can apply to multiple subcategories, it’s more important to be thoughtful about exactly how and where the best possible fit will be given the parameters of the category. Does your entry truly solve for the stated ask of the specific subcategory? If so, be sure to take the time and effort to customize the submission to address this. Again, given the enormity of the judging effort, it’s challenging for the judges to evaluate the same entry multiple times without developing some bias. You want the judges to enjoy and focus on your entry – not think to themselves “this one again?”.
• Know your Audience: If your entry is in an industry that is not widely understood, or the idea applies to a very niche part of a field, consider how to explain the business and the concept in some effective layman’s way. Several entries we evaluated were technically very interesting but applied to esoteric business uses. In a few cases, luckily, some judges had personal experience in those fields and could explain the application to the panel. But it’s not to your advantage to rely on such coincidence.

While data science and analytics are still relatively new disciplines in the advertising and marketing industries as a whole, their role and importance are growing and becoming more a part of the DNA of the best work in the industry. One of our fellow judges, the internationally recognized creative director Humberto Polar (and the recipient of numerous Lions awards), framed the challenge of the entrants in an interesting way – entries are most effective when they are “Story Doing, not just Story Telling”. Entries that effectively execute a concept using, gathering, assimilating, interpreting, and analyzing data creatively end-to-end resonated most positively with the Lions judges.

— by John Lucker, Advisory Principal and Global Advanced Analytics Market Leader, Deloitte & Touche LLP; and Jim Caruso, Founding Partner, President - Apollo Program