The Cannes Lions Official

WRAP-UP REPORT

Cannes Lions 2024: Humanity and humour

JACQUES SÉGUÉLA | CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER AND CO-VICE-CHAIRMAN, HAVAS | LION OF ST MARK SEMINAR

"Wow, wow, WOW.” This is how Lion of St Mark recipient Jacques Séguéla, Chief Creative Officer and Former Co-Vice-Chairman at Havas, summed it up on Friday at the Festival, along with a plea to “love ideas, love creativity, love life”. And it echoed the sentiment of many delegates at the end of a packed, vibrant week.

Speakers this year included Nobel Peace Prize winner and CEO of Rappler Maria Ressa. X’s Chief Technology Officer Elon Musk. Brand Consultant, Author and Marketing Professor Mark Ritson. Saturday Night Live Actor and Comedian Kenan Thompson. Liquid Death Founder and CEO Mike Cessario. And multiple chief marketing officers – and some chief financial officers, too – from companies including McDonald’s, Kraft Heinz and Procter & Gamble, as well as the 2024 Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year Unilever. This Official Cannes Lions Wrap-Up condenses the magic of the stage sessions and spotlights winning work. One clear takeaway from this year’s Festival was that humanity and humour remain at the heart of cutting-edge creativity. And while AI’s role is growing, a commitment to problem-solving and achieving impact through innovative craft was evident across the stages and the Grand Prix winners.

We’ve structured this report around the five Festival content streams, so you can easily track the themes explored this year. The Creativity Toolbox shows how creatives are returning to traditional craft techniques – often to communicate complex messages. In Insights and Trends, you can learn about comedy’s comeback, why “weird works” and why brands are more relaxed about the rulebook. Letting go of the reins was also a theme in Talent and Culture. Find out why the best ideas come from diverse teams and why empathy, vulnerability and even ignorance can all be competitive advantages.

Creative Impact, written by our sister company WARC, showcases new routes to effectiveness and the case for brand-building in a digital economy. WARC co-curated the Creative Impact track with LIONS for the second year running. And finally, Innovation Unwrapped, written by our sister company Contagious, unpacks how technology is – in the words of Sir John Hegarty, Creative Founder of The Garage Entertainment – both “friend and foe”.

Want to know what was going on at Cannes Lions? Use this report to decode the trends that emerged across 80 hours of talks, speakers and events. And if you were a delegate or Digital Pass holder, you can access 2024 Cannes Lions talks until 12 July on lovethework.com.

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