tuesday 20 june

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Harnessing the Power of Horizontal Creativity for Growth and Good

To innovate at fast pace and differentiate from their competitors, brands need to be able to leverage the talent and capabilities within their organizations and their partner networks without being slowed down by complexity and siloes.

Horizontal creativity is creativity that will not stay confined ‘within its box’ and rather bleeds into media, customer experiences and commerce to inject inspiration as well as to manifest brand purpose at every possible connection point. Cannes Lions is the perfect showcase to discuss the power of horizontal creativity to drive growth for business and good for society and, most importantly, the ultimate stage to see it in action.

Generative AI is the ‘must’ topic that is being name-dropped in virtually every conversation at Cannes this year. Will it replace human creativity and become the new horizontal force that permeates the brand-customer relationship of the future? Several sessions both at the Palais and across the beach houses scattered across the Croisette converge on the notion that Generative AI will mostly be an accelerator that delivers velocity through incremental solutions, optimized performance, and scaled craft, but human insights will continue to be key to finding the kernels of truth that marketers can authentically address with their brand, unlocking universal resonance in an increasingly crowded world.​

Furthermore, it was remarked that taste – in the sense of an aesthetic and cultural sensibility that is developed overtime – is unique to humans precisely because the experience of acquiring it is tied to a lived, long-term trajectory and journey through influences versus real-time computing. In fact, two Nike works that were awarded at Cannes used AI (or played with our notion of what AI will be able to soon do) to remark on the value of human excellence tied through its evolution through time: ‘Never Done Evolving Featuring Serena’, which was awarded the Grand Prix for Digital Craft, leveraged AI to decode the athlete’s evolution throughout her two decades long career in the wake of her retirement. ‘Nike FC Presents the Footballverse’, which was awarded a Gold Lions for Entertainment, depicts a group of sports enthusiastic data scientists recreating through AI male and female ,current and retired soccer players in an attempt to find out who would excel among representatives of different eras and different playing styles that succeeded to one another in the history of the world’s most beloved sport.

Future facing brands create culture, change society, and invent the future and this is best accomplished through collaboration, partnership, and trust built over time among humans. Two great examples of this are JR Group and dentsu’s ‘My Japan Railway’, which was awarded a Grand Prix in the Industry Craft category, as well as a Gold Lions in Design, and Microsoft’s ‘Adlam – An Alphabet to Preserve Culture’, which was awarded a Grand Prix in Design and a Gold in Industry Craft. Whether it’s a language or a railway system, both cases use today’s craft to celebrate systems of connection that humans have built over time, systems that allowed creativity to enrich the human experience by virtue of their evolutionary nature. 

Other insights

Albert Einstein once said that “creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.” Several works celebrated at Cannes this year leveraged existing media that we are used to seeing in a certain light and repurposed them to create brand awareness through irony and shock value. An example of this is NotMilk’s ‘We Didn’t Write This Campaign’, which was awarded a Gold in the Print & Publishing category. The company was being sued by big dairy industry lawyers, who inadvertently provided brilliant copy that perfectly embodied the company’s value proposition. AB In Bev’s ‘The Artois Probability’ highlighted the historical legacy of Stella Artois, a beer in production since 1366, by analyzing the color and recipient shape in several European paintings featuring beer, taking into account the year in which each painting was made and the artists’ distance from Stella Artois’ Belgian brewery to determine the level of probability that the beverage depicted in each masterwork was indeed Stella Artois.

Repurposing Media for Shock Value

The Taiwanese World of Warcraft

We tend to think about repurposed media in terms of taking the old and layering the new on top of it, but truly astonishing results can be achieved inverting the factors as seen in Activision Blizzard and Dentsu Creative Taiwan’s ‘The Taiwanese World of Warcraft’, an adaptation of the most talked-about story among Warcraft players—Wrath of the Lich King – in the 400 years old Taiwanese puppetry tradition, which was awarded a Bronze in the Entertainment Lions for Gaming category.

Sound can transport us to a different place, open us up to experiences that are outside of our reach otherwise, and build an emotional bridge that encourages acceptance. This year, Cannes Lions rewarded work that truly pushed the boundaries of what sound can do: the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s ‘The Most Beautiful Sound’ captured the sound of a cancer cell dying, playing it for patients in treatment to give them a sensorial experience of their progress. Michelob Ultra’s Dreamcaster, awarded a Grand Prix in the Entertainment Lions for Sports category and a Silver Lion in the Radio & Audio category, leveraged spatial audio and a purpose-developed new haptic language, as well as AI-powered refreshable braille to empower a blind person to commentate a live NBA game on prime-time television. Sound and music are also a powerful force in creating connections and engendering allyship.

Breaking Barriers Through Sonic Connections

A dentsu Beach House session titled ‘Pride Was Always a Protest’, featuring industry thought leaders from GLAAD, NBC Universal, Meta and dentsu reflected on the step back in LGBTQIA+ rights in several countries, the rise in hate crimes towards this community in countries like the UK, and the recent backlash that caused some brands from pulling back their Pride initiatives. The session pointed to P&G and iHeart Media’s ‘Can’t Cancel Pride’ on-demand concert as one of the most remarkable and successful campaigns out there recognizing, celebrating, and supporting LGBTQIA+ rights and to dentsu’s very own ‘More Than That’ podcast, built from the ground up in partnerships with brands and diversity-owned producers and distributors to address the inequities in the media and advertising supply chain.

Pride Was Always a Protest

Watch our sessions in full and experience the insightful conversations with our people, partners and clients.

Panel session recordings

Client connect

Kathleen Hall, Chief Brand Officer at Microsoft, and Irina Sergeeva, Digital Marketing Director at dentsu, catch up after a panel on human-centric tech solutions.

Gallery

Sound can transport us to a different place, open us up to experiences that are outside of our reach otherwise, and build an emotional bridge that encourages acceptance. This year, Cannes Lions rewarded work that truly pushed the boundaries of what sound can do: the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s ‘The Most Beautiful Sound’ captured the sound of a cancer cell dying, playing it for patients in treatment to give them a sensorial experience of their progress. Michelob Ultra’s Dreamcaster, awarded a Grand Prix in the Entertainment Lions for Sports category and a Silver Lion in the Radio & Audio category, leveraged spatial audio and a purpose-developed new haptic language, as well as AI-powered refreshable braille to empower a blind person to commentate a live NBA game on prime-time television. Sound and music are also a powerful force in creating connections and engendering allyship.

Breaking Barriers Through Sonic Connections

A dentsu Beach House session titled ‘Pride Was Always a Protest’, featuring industry thought leaders from GLAAD, NBC Universal, Meta and dentsu reflected on the step back in LGBTQIA+ rights in several countries, the rise in hate crimes towards this community in countries like the UK, and the recent backlash that caused some brands from pulling back their Pride initiatives. The session pointed to P&G and iHeart Media’s ‘Can’t Cancel Pride’ on-demand concert as one of the most remarkable and successful campaigns out there recognizing, celebrating, and supporting LGBTQIA+ rights and to dentsu’s very own ‘More Than That’ podcast, built from the ground up in partnerships with brands and diversity-owned producers and distributors to address the inequities in the media and advertising supply chain.

Pride Was Always a Protest

We tend to think about repurposed media in terms of taking the old and layering the new on top of it, but truly astonishing results can be achieved inverting the factors as seen in Activision Blizzard and Dentsu Creative Taiwan’s ‘The Taiwanese World of Warcraft’, an adaptation of the most talked-about story among Warcraft players—Wrath of the Lich King – in the 400 years old Taiwanese puppetry tradition, which was awarded a Bronze in the Entertainment Lions for Gaming category.

The Taiwanese World of Warcraft

Albert Einstein once said that “creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.” Several works celebrated at Cannes this year leveraged existing media that we are used to seeing in a certain light and repurposed them to create brand awareness through irony and shock value. An example of this is NotMilk’s ‘We Didn’t Write This Campaign’, which was awarded a Gold in the Print & Publishing category. The company was being sued by big dairy industry lawyers, who inadvertently provided brilliant copy that perfectly embodied the company’s value proposition. AB In Bev’s ‘The Artois Probability’ highlighted the historical legacy of Stella Artois, a beer in production since 1366, by analyzing the color and recipient shape in several European paintings featuring beer, taking into account the year in which each painting was made and the artists’ distance from Stella Artois’ Belgian brewery to determine the level of probability that the beverage depicted in each masterwork was indeed Stella Artois.

Repurposing Media for Shock Value

Other insights

Future facing brands create culture, change society, and invent the future and this is best accomplished through collaboration, partnership, and trust built over time among humans. Two great examples of this are JR Group and dentsu’s ‘My Japan Railway’, which was awarded a Grand Prix in the Industry Craft category, as well as a Gold Lions in Design, and Microsoft’s ‘Adlam – An Alphabet to Preserve Culture’, which was awarded a Grand Prix in Design and a Gold in Industry Craft. Whether it’s a language or a railway system, both cases use today’s craft to celebrate systems of connection that humans have built over time, systems that allowed creativity to enrich the human experience by virtue of their evolutionary nature. 

Horizontal creativity is creativity that will not stay confined ‘within its box’ and rather bleeds into media, customer experiences and commerce to inject inspiration as well as to manifest brand purpose at every possible connection point. Cannes Lions is the perfect showcase to discuss the power of horizontal creativity to drive growth for business and good for society and, most importantly, the ultimate stage to see it in action.

Generative AI is the ‘must’ topic that is being name-dropped in virtually every conversation at Cannes this year. Will it replace human creativity and become the new horizontal force that permeates the brand-customer relationship of the future? Several sessions both at the Palais and across the beach houses scattered across the Croisette converge on the notion that Generative AI will mostly be an accelerator that delivers velocity through incremental solutions, optimized performance, and scaled craft, but human insights will continue to be key to finding the kernels of truth that marketers can authentically address with their brand, unlocking universal resonance in an increasingly crowded world.​

Furthermore, it was remarked that taste – in the sense of an aesthetic and cultural sensibility that is developed overtime – is unique to humans precisely because the experience of acquiring it is tied to a lived, long-term trajectory and journey through influences versus real-time computing. In fact, two Nike works that were awarded at Cannes used AI (or played with our notion of what AI will be able to soon do) to remark on the value of human excellence tied through its evolution through time: ‘Never Done Evolving Featuring Serena’, which was awarded the Grand Prix for Digital Craft, leveraged AI to decode the athlete’s evolution throughout her two decades long career in the wake of her retirement. ‘Nike FC Presents the Footballverse’, which was awarded a Gold Lions for Entertainment, depicts a group of sports enthusiastic data scientists recreating through AI male and female ,current and retired soccer players in an attempt to find out who would excel among representatives of different eras and different playing styles that succeeded to one another in the history of the world’s most beloved sport.

Gallery

Client connect

Kathleen Hall, Chief Brand Officer at Microsoft, and Irina Sergeeva, Digital Marketing Director at dentsu, catch up after a panel on human-centric tech solutions.

Watch our sessions in full and experience the insightful conversations with our people, partners and clients.

Panel session recordings

Harnessing the Power of Horizontal Creativity for Growth and Good

To innovate at fast pace and differentiate from their competitors, brands need to be able to leverage the talent and capabilities within their organizations and their partner networks without being slowed down by complexity and siloes.

tuesday 20 june

Highlights