70 up! Seven decades on creativity’s cutting edge

THIS YEAR marks the 70th anniversary of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. To celebrate this landmark, there will be a dedicated session on Friday in the Debussy Theatre, entitled In the Making – 70 Years of Groundbreaking Creativity.

Those new to the Lions community may not be familiar with the event’s history. Inspired by the International Film Festival, which began in the 1940s, a group of worldwide cinema screen advertising contractors (SAWA) felt the makers of advertising films should receive similar recognition to feature filmmakers.

Launched as the International Advertising Film Festival, the first SAWA-inspired event took place in Venice in September 1954 with 187 film entries from 14 countries competing. The Lion of Venice, an ancient bronze statue in the city’s Piazza San Marcos, was the inspiration for the Lion trophy. The second Festival was held in Monte Carlo and then in Cannes in 1956. After that, it alternated between Venice and Cannes until 1984, when the southern French city became the permanent home.

Roger Hatchuel, the French businessman and former member of SAWA, was to take over the management of the Festival in 1987. His involvement is still recognised today in the form of the Roger

Hatchuel Student Academy. Three years later the Festival added a seminar programme of high-profile speakers. This heralded a period of significant growth. Renamed The International Advertising Festival, the event was broadened to reflect the multimedia approach of ad campaigns. In 1992, Press and Outdoor Lions were added and a Young Creatives registration package was also introduced. The event as it appears today really began to take shape through the 1990s. A Young Creatives Competition was included in the Festival programme, and the Media and Cyber Lions were added in 1998/99.

EMAP (now Ascential) acquired the event in 2004 and lost no time adding Radio and Promo Lions and new awards for agencies. As the awards programme grew so did the conference offering — attracting thought-leaders across disciplines. Highlights included Al Gore taking to the stage in 2008 to discuss climate crisis.

Speakers such as Rupert Murdoch, Steve Ballmer and Tony Bennett established a quality threshold still evident today.

Categories have continued to evolve with some notable additions including Film Craft, Creative Effectiveness, Branded Content, Entertainment, Mobile and the Grand Prix for Good — designed to recognise charities or public services.

A decisive pivot towards creativity came in 2011, when the Festival changed its strapline to the International Festival of Creativity. The same year saw John Hegarty, creative director and founder of BBH, awarded the first Lion of St. Mark, introduced to recognise an individual’s contribution to creativity in communications. The profile of the event also began to evolve, with a significant increase in clients. Memorable initiatives were launched each year. One of the most fondly re - membered was a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a competition to solve a communications challenge that the world is facing. The past decade has seen landmarks including The Young Lions Creative Academy with Bob Isherwood, The Innovation Lions, Lions Live, a dedicated China Day, a visit from Lou Reed, and a Cannes LionHeart Award for U2’s Bono. Efforts to improve DEI brought the launch of the The Glass Lion: The Lion for Change, See It Be It and CC:DC’S Inkwell Beach, from Group Black.

The 2020 Cannes Lions were cancelled due to the global pandemic. However the event and the community rose to the challenge, with the launch of Cannes Lions Live and Lions Membership. The physical event resumed in 2022, with a return to pre-pandemic levels this year. With new categories, a packed conference programme and a range of ground-breaking initiatives and partnerships, the 2023 edition promises to capture the spirit that has made it such a powerful creative platform over the last seven decades.