The move is a comprehensive response to dramatic industry shifts, which have created exciting opportunities for both brands and agencies. Lions Festival CEO, Philip Thomas, says "Using data and technology as tools that can lead to great ideas has become mainstream. As ever when these seismic changes occur in the industry, Cannes Lions is asked to consider ways we can acknowledge and reflect the reality of what is going on."
Actively recognising the growing relationship between data, technology and ideas, the new Creative Data Lions and expanded Innovation Lions are the product of extensive industry consultation. The Innovation Lions will now include categories for standalone and branded technological solutions, adtech platforms and models. The new Creative Data Lions will celebrate the role of data in shaping ideas, better storytelling and engagement, which David Droga, Creative Chairman, Droga5 sees as integral.
"I love the friction between creativity and data. I think when you can navigate between the two and they complement each other it is a wonderful thing. Data and science is liberating for creativity because it offers a foundation. We are not scared of it - data furnishes us with great insights and allows us to stop bullshitting ourselves. It helps us to ask the right questions."
Setting the stage for the awards will be the Lions Innovation Festival itself - a carefully curated programme of talks, demonstrations and networking opportunities designed to ignite ideas and display the tools to bring them to life.
Lions Innovation will be part of the 2015 Cannes Lions and open to Classic Pass-holding delegates, but the inaugural Festival can also be attended as a separate, 2-day event.
Because of industry demand and involvement, news of the Festival and the focus it brings to Cannes Lions has been widely welcomed.
Speaking about the central role data will play in Lions Innovation, Todd Cullen, Chief Data Officer, Ogilvy & Mather and head of OgilvyAmp, the agency's data offering, said, "There is no better place than Cannes Lions to experience the electricity produced by data-inspired creativity. Lions Innovation will show veterans and newcomers how geeks and creatives are sparking new ideas to create the future of media."
Ben Jones, CTO, AKQA said the new Festival also highlighted that innovative tech does not just serve creativity, but is creative in itself. "Lions Innovation recognises that a 'Creative' can be a coder just as much as a designer. It's a platform to celebrate everyone as equal yet highlight that technology inspires dreams and then delivers them."
Lions Festivals CEO, Philip Thomas, concludes, "Cannes Lions is, was and always will be about creativity and it will be fascinating and exciting to see how - or indeed if - these new tools are being used to improve the quality of our industry's ideas."
The Lions Innovation Festival takes place 25-26 June 2015 in the Lerins Hall of the Palais des Festivals, closing with the new Lions Innovation Awards. Passes will be available from 15 January 2015 and can be booked standalone or, during the launch year only, included in the Classic 7 day Cannes Lions pass. Entries will open 22 January 2015.
For more information, go to www.canneslions.com/innovation.
