Introduction
Welcome to this summary of the Cannes Lions 2022 wrap-up report, in partnership with TikTok. After two years LIONS was thrilled to gather the industry together again in Cannes to champion creativity, explore its multifaceted evolution, and set a new benchmark of excellence for the year ahead. Among the abundance of insights and ideas, we’ve delved into the winning work along with all of the Festival’s talks to give you the key takeouts and trends.
Earlier this year, we identified six critical themes for creativity from our State of Creativity Study - our exclusive research capturing 3300 leaders' perspectives on creativity today. These six themes formed the framework for the Cannes Lions programme. Following the Festival, the Wrap-Up Report revisits these themes: we've highlighted the latest insights, new trends and winning work to help you understand how to reshape your creative work for success in the year ahead.
Throughout all of the work and discussions, the sentiment and importance of community comes through loud and clear. We need to nurture and inspire new talent into the global creative community to develop breakthrough ideas; brands need to seek out and engage the new communities congregating in virtual worlds; and companies must form new collective communities if we are to solve the world’s biggest issues.
At the 2022 Cannes Lions we saw just how much creativity’s power to advance business, develop people and shape society resonates with audiences, jurors and consumers. This report explores the hottest trends, techniques and conversations around creativity. We hope the insights and learning help fuel your creative thinking for the year ahead.
Business Transformation
Flexibility and empathy: Two ingredients for business change
Creativity can be applied beyond brand communications to deliver transformational business change. Consider how you establish your business to encourage and inspire collaboration. Bring multi-disciplinary teams together to tackle business challenges using the key facets of creativity - lateral-thinking and human-centred design. Lead with purpose and focus on problem solving for people's day-to-day challenges or long-term goals, and not just their consumer journey to your product or service.
Creative Effectiveness
The measurable impact of creativity
The rudiments of the most effective creative work have not changed - topicality, building intrigue, and consistency and commitment to a universally appealing brand platform, are proven qualities of the most impactful work. But the techniques to create ideas with these features have evolved. As platforms like TikTok foster new and niche communities considered social listening will help uncover how your brand is being spoken about. Avoid the comfort of the familiar - intrigue is built by revealing something that's never been seen before.
Sustainability
Innovate for impact
Achieving sustainable goals is a long-term plan, but this is a team sport, and collaboration is essential to uncover new solutions. Joining forces with unusual partners who deliver a fresh perspective, different insights and novel skillsets can offer a different lens to tackle an existing problem. The Lion winners serve as a reminder that humour, beautiful craft and good design will help create cut-through with consumers to encourage sustainable purchases and behaviours.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Show up in every sphere
The Festival's focus on DE&I shifted this year from being solely about ensuring equitable representation to demanding fair reward. There is concern that tech could help communities level up, but that must be considered from the outset to avoid deepening the inequalities that exist in the real world as we shift into Web3 and we begin to populate the metaverse with virtual inequality.
Data, Tech & Innovation
It’s time for an industry tech-check
Technology and data have the capacity to solve many of the issues outlined in this report and dominating the industry agenda - making the world more inclusive, attracting talent, proving creative effectiveness or designing transformative solutions. The key to unlocking its potential is to make it human-focused, rather than tech-first. It must build on – rather than replace – human experience.
Talent
The Great Reshuffle
The talent crisis continues to pile pressure on agencies and brands to create the future of work their teams want to be a part of. Agile ecosystems, working policies that help talent flex their out-of-office creativity, and systems that strengthen career progression can help give the industry the refresh it deserves. Employers must be as transformative in their people strategies as they are in their creative visions.
If you’d like to view the full Cannes Lions Official Wrap-Up Report, please click here.