Cannes Lions has announced the introduction of Lions Live, a digital education, inspiration and networking experience that will run throughout June under the theme ‘Creativity Matters’. Activity will build to a peak during the original dates of the Festival of Creativity, 22-26 June.
Lions Live will comprise masterclasses and hangouts with creative industry legends, lectures from experts, talks from speakers confirmed for the Festival, and a selection of the most impactful professional classes and learning modules from the world of creativity, effectiveness and marketing. The platform will also feature Future Gazers – a collection of industry experts who will assess how Covid-19 has transformed the way the industry will need to approach Cannes Lions’ already-announced 2020 themes. It will also showcase the best of the hundreds of responses to the current crisis from the global creative community currently being shared on the newly-launched Creativity Moves us Forward platform. Access to Lions Live: Creativity Matters will be free of charge to all.
The Work — the subscription-only archive of more than 200,000 Lions campaigns and 1,600 Festival talks — will be made freely accessible to all throughout the original Festival week, providing access to case studies and inspiration to help fuel ideas and creativity. Additionally, during June anyone will be able to access a specially curated course of lessons taken from the Cannes Lions masterclass series on 42courses.com. This will include lessons from the likes of Rei Inamoto, Keith Reinhard and Debbi Vandeven, on topics such as Creative Effectiveness, Strategy, Storytelling, Behavioural Science and Digital Marketing. Meanwhile, Cannes Lions’ sister companies MediaLink and WARC will also be bringing their Cannes activities to life, with a virtual MediaLink networking beach, and lessons on the very best effectiveness strategies from around the world presented by WARC.
Simon Cook, Managing Director of Cannes Lions, said “In order to drive progress through creativity, and support our community at this difficult time, we want to provide the global industry with the opportunity to learn and network throughout June and beyond. For the first time in nearly 70 years, we are unable to bring the industry together in one physical place in June. Lions Live: Creativity Matters will provide a virtual platform for the industry to collaborate, learn and problem-solve, because now more than ever, creativity really does matter.”