LIONS and WARC announced Creative Impact, a co-curated stream of content that will run every day and across multiple stages as part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Monday 19 – Friday 23 June 2023.
The significant focus on effectiveness at this year’s Festival reflects the extreme pressure on marketing budgets in the current economic climate, and the urgent need to prove the role creativity can play in supercharging sustainable commercial growth.
Creative Impact will uncover what it takes to build, protect and grow a business through creativity in 2023. It will ask what creative effectiveness means in the current media and economic environment, and what types of creative thinking will make the biggest impact. It will also cover how to make a proven and compelling case for investment in creative marketing to the C-suite of an organisation.
Creative Impact will serve as a leading international platform for creative effectiveness. It will present actionable ideas and examples from the industry, showcase how brands have leveraged creativity to grow their businesses, provide in-depth research on the factors behind effectiveness, and offer guidance on future challenges and effective responses in the industry.
Importantly, the emphasis will be as much on the “creative” part of the equation as on “effectiveness” – ensuring delegates gain insight into how the two work together.
The Creative Impact content stream will be a core part of the delegate experience, alongside other Festival programming. It will feature workshops and accelerators, ensuring delegates come back equipped with tools and insights they can plug directly into their own organisations and marketing plans.
Simon Cook, CEO, LIONS, said: “We know that Lion-winning creativity has the power to progress people, shape society and drive business and we also know that brands and agencies are under pressure to prove the ROI of creativity. As part of our 70th edition of Cannes Lions, we’re delighted to introduce Creative Impact, which we are co-curating with our sister brand WARC, the global authority in effective marketing. Loaded with world-class thinkers, insights, resources and practical advice from those who successfully make the case for creativity everyday, we’re pleased to provide a dedicated space for everyone in the business of creativity to come together to learn about something that will be essential to our collective success over the next 70 years. Creative Effectiveness.”
Paul Coxhill, CEO, WARC, commented: “In 2022, WARC organised a hugely successful effectiveness series at Cannes Lions, building on 10 years of ever-growing programming at the Festival. We’re delighted to work with LIONS to expand this into the Creative Impact stream, bringing the best thinking on effectiveness from around the world into one place. Brand marketers, media owners and agencies will come back from the Festival armed with new ways to respond to the current climate and to maximise their impact through creative effectiveness for both the short- and the long-term.”
