• The Festival reveals the 2020 Content Agenda, focused on eight industry-driven themes
• The new Creative Business Transformation Lions are introduced, as well as a refresh to PR Lions
28 October 2019 – Cannes Lions launches the 2020 Festival by announcing the Content Agenda themes, alongside the launch of the Creative Business Transformation Lions. New elements of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, taking place from Monday 22 June – Friday 26 June 2020, were devised through industry-wide consultation and in-depth research with the global branded communications community.
Cannes Lions gathered feedback from over 1500 customers and executed 100 in-depth interviews with industry-leading Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Creative Officers, brand leaders, strategists and CEOs to inform the 2020 Content Agenda’s eight themes. Each theme is shaped around the most business-critical areas of branded marketing and communications and the Festival now invites the industry to apply to speak on stage and enter their content submissions.
Simon Cook, Managing Director, Cannes Lions, said: “In response to industry need, the 2020 Cannes Lions content themes will set the global agenda for the industry and help us all navigate the year ahead. We look forward to seeing a hugely diverse set of expert speakers from across the breadth of creative and cultural disciplines. Our community attends the festival to learn from best practice, make valuable connections, and take away tools and techniques that will accelerate business and personal performance and unlock creative potential.”
The 2020 content themes are:
• Creativity is the Business Growth Engine – explores the role of marketers to define how creativity can support both short-term activities and long-term brand equity to have a better level of influence in the boardroom.
• Creative Disruption in Commerce – trailblazers from brands and retailers will introduce pioneering forms of commerce (cashless, omnichannel, immersive) to promote better buying experiences.
• Post-Purpose: Brand Accountability and Activism – the world’s biggest brands and agencies will discuss how they’re tackling critical global issues, from climate change to inequality.
• Your Brand is my Experience – brand and experience are now interlinked. Brands will discuss how they experiment with customer experience and improve the entire customer journey through seamless interactions.
• Looking to 2030: Making your Business
Future-fit – in an era where we
constantly learn, experiment and create the future, explore the new skillsets
required and how to acquire and retain the world’s best creative and tech
talent.
• Applied Creativity: When Data, Tech
and Ideas Collide – experts will
share examples of how to apply data and tech to enthral audiences, and brands
will demonstrate how they harness tech to create lasting emotional connections.
• Storytelling at Scale – speakers will explore new creative dimensions
in storytelling, across a range of platforms and formats, to gain attention and
engage in the issues that matter, putting cultural relevancy at the forefront.
• Let’s Get Back to Brand – delves in to how creativity can help to curb
the current obsession with clicks and impressions and focus instead on
brand-building and long-term brand health.
Charlotte Williams, VP – Content, Cannes
Lions, said: “We spoke to more than a
hundred of the most brilliant minds in the industry to uncover the real business
challenges they face. The eight themes explore the key concerns and
opportunities for branded marketing and communications, and we look forward to welcoming
world-class industry leaders to share their perspectives on the Festival stages
next June.”
New for 2020, the Creative
Business Transformation Lions are launched in response to the digital
disruption that is affecting the way brands and businesses operate. As
businesses invest in new ways of working in order to future-proof their
business, this Lion celebrates the
creativity that drives businesses forward, and the creative thinking
that changes how businesses organise themselves, how people work
internally and how customers engage. The Creative Business Transformation Lions honour this new breed of work.
Work that wins at the Festival will demonstrate how creative change has been achieved across core business functions, delivering business impact and creating better customer outcomes. This Award covers the breadth of new creative approaches that are used to create value and drive competitive advantage, alongside traditional brand communications. This includes the creation of new products and services, the use of technology and business design, and the reinvention of operations and customer experiences, in order to drive transformative change.
Susie Walker, Head of Awards, Cannes Lions, “We’re expecting entries to
come from across in-house and agency teams that provide creative
services, consultancy, experience or service design, new
product development, innovation and digital transformation, in
order to drive transformational change. We continually
evolve the Awards, in line with the industry and the new Creative Business
Transformation Lions celebrate creativity that can drive tangible business change.”
The Festival has also refreshed the PR Lions for 2020 to ensure the Award
accurately represents the current PR industry. Cannes Lions undertook research
with PR specialists globally to better understand their unique challenges and
perspectives to ensure the PR Lions focus on the areas of creative work that
the industry wants to be recognised for today.
All updates to Award categories will be available on the Cannes Lions website in November 2019. Entries to the Lions Awards open on the 16th of January 2020 and further information can be found at: https://www.canneslions.com/enter/awards
Content submissions to speak on the Cannes Lions stages are now open and will close on 10th January 2020 – further details on the content themes can be found at: https://www.canneslions.com/attend/2020-content-themes
Delegate passes are now available to buy on the Cannes Lions website here.