6 'aha moments' from Cannes Lions 2023

As the dust settles after another inspiring trip into the whirlwind of international creativity that is the Cannes Lions Festival, we’ve had some time to reflect on this year’s key takeaways and “aha moments.”

What was new? What was inspiring? What was actionable? Here’s what our Deloitte Digital leaders found:

During conversations from Inkwell Beach and the Palais to our sessions in the Deloitte Digital apartment, many marketing leaders discovered it is no longer possible for creative teams and technology teams to operate in silos or pursue mismatched objectives. What used to be thought of as a pure “brand” or “advertising” activity is now deeply integrated with technology in ways that radically transform what a campaign is, how it functions, and how it is measured. Simultaneously, breakthrough campaigns are using new technologies to architect profoundly moving brand experiences.

“Creative transformation must not be limited to advertising,” explains Deloitte Digital’s US Advertising, Marketing, & Commerce leader, Brian Frank. “We’re seeing a rapid convergence of strategy, technology, design, and data/analytics into an increasingly integrated ecosystem to transform how customers and brands connect. Emerging technologies are accelerating and transforming traditional creative and agency competencies in new and unexpected ways, with profound implications for how tomorrow’s marketers need to think, collaborate, and execute.”

Deloitte Digital US Chief Design Officer Meg Fath built on this idea in a panel discussion with Adobe, explaining, “We are all consumers of experiences and we don’t change our criteria for what good looks like just because we logged into work or entered a different URL. The heart of this is a transformation of human behavior, connecting digital experiences to deeply felt emotions to drive the change we wish to see.”

Talk of generative AI was everywhere at the festival this year, with many people extolling the possibilities and cautioning the risks of machine learning and its potential impact on creative professions.

Google Cloud joined Deloitte Digital for a rousing discussion on the potential of generative AI as a creative accelerator and a personalization powerhouse. At the Equality Lounge, Deloitte CMO Program leader, Stacy Kemp, explored the potential for generative AI to be used as a tool for societal good.

What does the future hold for marketers hoping to leverage generative AI?

“This technology has tremendous potential to act as a creative accelerator for teams seeking to iterate, prototype, and personalize content rapidly,” explains Deloitte Digital US chief marketing officer and Experience Agency lead, Mark Singer, “but the technology alone is only as good as the engineers, data scientists, and creatives that learn to use, integrate, and program the tools. Humans are a key channel in making it work well.”

When economic environments become uncertain, do purpose-driven initiatives need to fall by the wayside? The answer from the industry at Cannes appears to be a resounding NO. Brands seek to deepen their emotional bonds with consumers by increasing investment in initiatives focused on inclusion and impact.

Deloitte Digital Global Ecosystems and Alliances leader, Paul Clemmons, explored connecting innovation to impact through the World Economic Forum’s UpLink platform (powered by Deloitte and Salesforce) that helps entrepreneurs scale and fund their sustainable ventures, enabling community, business, and environment to thrive in harmony. His takeaway?

“Combining creativity and purpose with business transformation through enabling technologies is where the future of our industry is headed,” Clemmons shared.

Deloitte Digital’s Kristin Hooper agrees about the importance of purpose in building brands that customers truly love. She also acknowledges there’s still much work to be done.

Hooper joined Deloitte Digital Health Agency leader, Joanna Ruiz, in the Female Quotient’s Equality Lounge to discuss increasing representation across industries from media to healthcare and shared her perspective that “progress isn’t done. Even amid political, social, and economic uncertainty, brands and their marketing ecosystem partners should prioritize inclusion, belonging, diversity, and representation to foster increased participation and trust from customers and audiences.”

As an example of the ways brands and creatives can collaborate to launch purpose-driven initiatives across different industries, Ruiz pointed to Deloitte Digital and Johnson & Johnson’s collaboration with Chidiebere Ibe on the Illustrate Change project, a library of inclusive medical illustrations that aims to increase representation in healthcare.

As Illustrate Change’s chief medical illustrator, Chidiebere Ibe, explained in his Secret Speaker session on the Palais mainstage, “The launch of Illustrate Change marks a step forward toward a more representative medical education system.”

In a fascinating series of CMOs in the Spotlight interviews at the Palais, leaders from several different industries reflected on how the needed skills and core competencies of marketing organizations are rapidly evolving, and how the CMO’s role is evolving along with it.

“This blend of technical expertise and cultural savvy, repositions the marketing role as pivotal to innovating future business models in new and unexpected ways,” continued Kemp.

Discussions in the United Nations Development Panel Media Lounge explored the CMO’s increasing responsibility for driving a company’s purpose and climate agendas, while at the Wall Street Journal house, the focus was on how emerging technologies are changing how marketing campaigns are conceptualized, tested, launched, and measured. 

The top-down creative approach that treated social media campaigns as simple channels for executing a centralized strategy is giving way to new models with social media content creators at the creative helm. These creators use their close connection and intimate knowledge of their audiences to help companies reconceptualize, re-create, and redefine how they go to market.

“The beauty of Cannes is the creative collisions that occur in every talk and meeting,” explains Gold. “Creative, smart people coming together from all over the world to dialogue and debate—it has been a blast.”

How can you turn that creative inspiration into a lasting culture of creativity within your organization? 

As we settle back into our day-to-day work lives and start planning for next year’s campaigns, the lessons of this year’s creative collisions at Cannes will likely impact both how and what we create.

Are you wondering how to turn one of these aha moments into an emotionally compelling experience for your customers? We can help with that.