By Molly Cohen, Art Supervisor, FCB Health New York
Dear Cannes Lions,
I’m Molly E Cohen and I just attended your International Festival of Creativity.
I didn’t know what to expect when meeting, but I left with new ideas and aspirations for our industry.
In November of 2023, I discovered your Young Lions program called the Creative Academy, a program designed for 30 creatives under 30 years old who are selected from around the world. I applied and got in.
The Academy was a rigorous program.
We had five days packed with seven or more speakers per day in back-to-back sessions. They were intimate, fireside discussions and presentations. These speakers ranged from industry experts to award winners and beyond. All creative geniuses; all creative experimenters. To name a few, we had David Shing AKA Shingy from Digital Prophet, Woei Hern Chan, Head of Creative at Vayner Media APAC, and Lucas Heck, WhatsApp Creative Lead at Meta.
Here are three key takeaways from all the speakers that week:
1. There’s a new take on the creative brief
A consumer-first mindset. What happens if we put more emphasis on the consumer instead of the brand or product when writing a brief? With new technology and social media platforms, it’s easier than ever to actively listen to the target consumer. Communication is one part speaking and one part listening. Let’s join the conversation, not just start a new one and let’s make the conversation seamless by crafting the brief around what’s already being discussed.
2. Ingredients for award-winning work from inside a ‘mock’ jury room
Simplicity, execution, delivery and impact. It’s been confirmed hundreds of times that simple is better, at least when it comes to the idea. Make it short and sweet and share it in the first 5-10 seconds of your case study. Execution. Execute so your idea comes across clearly. That might mean complicated or that might mean simple. Just make sure it lines up to your idea, target audience, and marketing objective. Delivery. Delivery means tone and it means channel. Be intentional when you cross channels. Maybe your execution looks different on a social platform than it does in a print ad. Finally, impact. Make sure the audience (and the jurors) feel something big. How you do that is up to either the idea, the craft, the storytelling, or any other techniques us marketers play with. Nail these four elements and you just raised your chances of success. One example that shows these four elements coming together nicely is the B2B campaign Spreadbeats by FCB New York for Spotify. Simple idea, beautiful execution, thoughtful delivery and left us feeling mesmerized.
PS. When submitting your work, imagine the judges as “kids” with short attention spans. They go through many pieces and if they’re interested, they’re going to want to see the project from all angles. If there’s a way to have them engage with the campaign the same way your consumers did, make that accessible. It goes a long way.
3. The (AI)lephant in the room
The theme of our program was “Human Intelligence and Creativity.” In other words, we talked a lot about the partnership between humans and artificial intelligence. I’m leaving it to the experts to share their professional insights from the week, so instead, I’ll share a few thoughts and learnings that excite me as a young creative:
- Play. Stop talking about it and start using it.
- Have intention, be thoughtful. Do that and emotion will naturally emanate through your work.
- AI saves us time, helps us with personalization and allows us to scale up. The exciting part here is that the data being produced is also data being banked. This means that soon its capabilities will become exponentially limitless. I see this as opening doors for a brighter future.
In summary, out of all the Cannes Lions winners this year the ones that used artificial intelligence best used it to elevate their work emotionally and precisely. Like adding layers to an oil painting, AI was the final glaze that allowed everything to gently fall into place while also highlighting the important elements creating depth. To get technical with it, I seemed to notice that in these cases the use of AI influenced one or two of the five senses, therefore amplifying the audience’s experience as they engaged with the brand. Check out WoMen’s Football and Handshake Hunt for examples of what I mean.
As creative marketers we shift culture, we break barriers and we’re able to generate small impact towards a brighter future for people and brands around us. Creativity is our language and it’s a universal one. I'm grateful to surround myself with people who think humanity first. Naturally, as humans we’re driven by emotion, and I’ve realized through this experience, we should let that breathe in the work we do, no matter the category, be it pharmaceutical or general goods.
So, Cannes Lions 2024—the Young Lions Creative Academy 2024, thank you. Thank you for inspiring me to strive for my highest heights and for allowing me the opportunity to see what’s out there. Thank you for introducing me to 29 talented, charismatic and driven creatives, who I now call friends and future industry partners. I can’t wait to implement the knowledge I gained from you and share it with others.
My advice, not only as it relates to Cannes but for life, is to find your passion — pair it with your life’s mission and you’ll find a lot of answers to very difficult questions. You’ll watch your insecurities weaken and the right things slowly float into place. You might be surprised at how much you have in you, to give to yourself and to those around you.
Until next time, Cannes.
Molly
