Cannes Lions CEO on the power of creativity, the creator economy and making connections - Simon Cook

0:28Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Uncensored CMO. and what to expect this year from Cannes Lion. This is a great episode. You'll learn a lot about Cannes and what to expect. Here it is. Simon Cook, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Good to have you. So you're looking forward to the end of June. Well, maybe I should ask you, is it something you look forward to or are we now in the moment where it's all like a big show having to come together? Do you know what? Because we work on it all year, by the time you get to this point, you just want to get there. You just want to see it all come together, see the fruit of people's labours, especially the team, and see people, let's be honest, that we sometimes only see once a year at the festival itself.

1:07Do you have a big after-show party? Do you take the team out afterwards to celebrate? The day after the final award show on the Friday, we have a big party on the Saturday. And then lots of people take themselves off to quiet little corners in Europe and do very little to recover. I can imagine, I was going to say, that's probably what I'll be doing. I'll be just going somewhere where no one's around. I could just be myself. Fantastic. Well, Dines get into this year and what we're going to expect to see and all that kind of thing. But for people out there not as familiar as you are with Cannes Lions, tell us the origin story of how it came about and some things that people might not know about the festival.

1:46Yeah, sure. Well, it was inspired by the film festival. It was put together to really celebrate TV and cinema advertising. It didn't take place in Cannes, actually, for the first few years. The lion itself, the trophy, was inspired by the Lion of St. Mark, which sits in St. Mark's Square. and the festival took place in Venice for many years before coming to Cannes. I think it was in Monaco for a bit, a bit of back and forth before it found its home at Cannes Lions and was in awards for many, many years celebrating the best in creativity from around the world. And it was only really from the sort of 90s onwards that we started to build everything else around it.

2:26And now it's this global destination for everyone in the business of creativity. It is, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, is it the biggest festival of creativity in the world? I mean, I'm assuming it is, but... To my knowledge, yes. You know, from our side, it's many, many thousands of delegates, but increasingly many different parties as well. You and I will remember when it was just the agency folk that were coming, but now we have the brands, the media companies, technologists, creators, which we can get into, but it's a complete convergence. Well, you make a good point, you see, because I... very early for me to bring this up, but I did actually win a couple of Lions back in the day.

3:05Ah, congrats. So, you know, I'll mention that early. Where do you keep your Lions, John? Well, this is a question I've got for you because going back to the agency and client thing, I didn't get an invite. So I got the phone call from the agency who were having the party going, we've won. And I'm like, good for you. You didn't get your moment in the sign. Where was my invite? You know, sort of thing. So how do you retrospectively get a hold of a Lion? Is that something you can do? If you are credited on a piece of work, then you can get your hands on a lion. There we go. Right. Good. I'm sorting it out.

3:39But talking of the scale, though, I mean, how many lions have been handed out over the years and how many categories are there? Give us a sense of the scale of the operation. Well, it's really interesting. You're talking about the origin story. Obviously, the first original lion was film, TV and cinema advertising. Today, there are 30 different lions recognising the full breadth of disciplines. More recently, we've introduced lions for commerce and business transformation, but it was just a single lion for about 50 years. And then when we introduced the second lion, which was print and poster at the time, there was up for all.

4:15We're diluting the... Absolutely. And then obviously we saw the proliferation of categories that mirrored the industry. And that's what we do, really. We're just constantly talking to the industry about how we can reflect it in our awards program. Yeah, I can imagine. And how many entries do you get a year? Because I imagine there's quite an operation just managing the amount of entries you get. And what will be the kind of win ratio between number of people that enter and number of awards that get handed out? So we have 30 juries that can be judging up to 30 ,000 pieces of work in any given year.

4:47And in terms of the conversion rates, it's very consistent, actually, year on year. So roughly 10 % of all of the entries that get entered will win a shortlist. uh three percent will win a lion and then it's something like 0.01 will win a grand prix so it's very hard to win so anyone that has won one congratulations yes well done good good good all right so i'll keep on mentioning my two that i've won although as i tell everyone enter two one two yeah 100 ratio there we go um talking about cmos um i wanted to ask you about creative marketer of the year and whether whether whether you notice any trends in the kinds of businesses that win?

5:28What happens to the marketers after they win? Because it must be quite a prestigious thing. I imagine there's lots of CMOs out there getting, well, not lots, obviously a few that have won, kind of getting promoted off the back of it and riding off into the sunset. But what's been the impact of that? Well, it's really interesting. Off the back of AB InBev, who won Creative Marketer of the Year two years in a row, the first time that's ever happened, it was amazing actually how many global CMOs got in touch to say, how do I win this? You know, what's the deal? Because I think a lot of them recognise that there is a correlation between being a recipient of that award and things like your share price, for obvious reasons.

6:06But it's interesting because before AB InBev, you would see the number of lion wins increase over time to match what they're doing when it comes to their creativity, reach a peak receive that award and then in a lot of cases actually you'd see the performance of lions drop off a bit of a cliff which says a lot about the the tenure of a cmo actually yeah because as we know in order to to galvanize the team and get them behind an effort like that it takes the vision of someone who is really backing creativity in a big way yeah well it's a lovely proof point because i think something that people don't recognize about cmos is how much pressure they're under to demonstrate that what they're doing is making a difference and if you go back to your organizations celebrate, you know, creative leader of the year or whatever, that has a huge impact, doesn't it?

6:53Because it just, it's another evidence point that what you're doing is working. Yeah. And it helps you start to build a culture of creativity as well. Um, especially if you've got the ear of the CEO and the C-suite and they fully buy into the idea of backing your marketing efforts. So it's a great proof point for that, for continued success. And that's what we saw with AB InBiv actually. They were the first company to sustain that performance. That's very, very interesting. Now, I wanted to come and talk about the state of the nation, because you've done a bit of research recently that reflects probably how challenging the environment is at the moment if you're a marketer.

7:25And there's also a Gartner report that came out recently looking at the spend as a percentage of revenue for most companies. It's down to the lowest level, marketing investment is down to the lowest level since the pandemic, almost at pandemic level. So we're seeing budgets being squeezed, CMOs under a lot of pressure to do more with less. We're very much in an era of efficiency and that kind of thing. But I'd love to hear a bit more about what your research showed because it paints a bit of a mixed picture, both in terms of the challenges and the opportunities. Yeah, I think there were two really interesting data points for me.

8:00And this is a survey that we run globally. It goes to thousands of marketers around the world and leaders in our industry. and what it told us was that those CMOs especially representing brands that intended to grow that year because that's that's always the win they intended also to increase their marketing budgets and put more money behind creativity now in a separate part of the survey we also asked them what's keeping you awake at night you know what are your top 10 challenges and within the top three I think it was one of the things they identified was being able to make the case for creativity and get the buy-in that they need for investment from their boards from the c-suite so the appetite is there but they're finding it increasingly difficult to get that buy-in and investment and really that's that's shaping a lot of our product now at can lions we introduced the creative impact track last year with a focus on providing cmos and marketers and agencies with the data insights, let's face it, the ammunition that they need to be able to do exactly that.

9:07Yeah, I think you're absolutely in the right place here because, you know, most CMOs believe in creatives. We certainly hope so. It's their job to. But it really is winning over the business and getting permission to do the kind of work that you want to do. And also the budget to go and do it. So I think the more we can do to demonstrate the impact of creativity on business, I think the better. So that's absolutely the right thing to do. Some other interesting things that came out in your survey, which the one that struck me, actually, I'm sorry to bring up a negative here, but I think it's quite interesting, was 45 % of agencies described their relationship with their client as difficult.

9:44That was a bit impactful, you know, in terms of the tension. Now, of course, it's famous, isn't it, in terms of tension. Good tension, exactly. I know, but 45 % to say they felt their relationship was difficult, I think is a tough place to be and certainly an opportunity to foster creativity by building that relationship between client and agency. Yeah, really interesting stat. There's the healthy friction that exists that we encourage. But then I think it also speaks to a lack of trust in some relationships. And as we know, that's so important to the success of the work in the relationship. and actually some of the most popular sessions that we run at the festival are those conversations between chief creative officer and CMO where they actually talk about what they put in place in order to build that culture of trust to get to better work.

10:33Yeah, that's so true. The other thing I've noticed is that the really successful business, I mean maybe AB Invev is probably a good example, but the really successful businesses are ones where that relationship has been built over a long time and so that that trust is just intrinsically there. in relationship so often when you see a high turnover agency high turnover cmo that's where you get the friction lack of trust but it's like a relationship it takes years to really it does build that trust we actually did some analysis years ago on um the win rates of client and agency relationships over time and what we found is that after a couple of years there was a little dip but then if they persisted the performance would come back and actually agencies and clients that have worked together for 10 or more years typically experience twice the average win rate when it comes to Lions.

11:23That's a brilliant data point. I'm convinced you're, I hadn't spotted the dip actually, but now I think about it, you've got that honeymoon period, haven't you, where you've got the excitement that the pitch has been won. We've got this idea, we're going for it, you know, got the same team together. Maybe a little bit of complacency. Yeah, complacency slips in. And then often you've got, I mean, average tenure as CMO is probably around three years or something. You've probably got personnel changes, certainly at different levels on both sides and then you need to kind of reset and go again but yeah 10 years makes sense i mean all the best examples i see are you know that kind of length of time and then and then you also get to know what works and you learn don't you and then you get to kind of build on that over time and actually the um the agency client relationships that fit that profile when we talked to them and actually got to explain the different chapters and stages of their relationship there was a consistency so that was interesting to see as well typical challenges but then comeback moments very interesting so that was that was a universal experience do you mean as in consistency of experience of the dip exactly something that you saw across the point how interesting so did did are you seeing anyone and recognize that and address that or is that almost a natural part of relationship where you get the excitement the buzz you get the dip you figure that out and you go through it and you come out the other side i think it's human nature to some extent um but i think the key point is consistency and persistence you've got to want to put in the work and build that trust in order to get to the better result yeah that's true i mean something i certainly learned in the well if i go back to the two can lions are one so it's mentioned twice already which categories do you remember it was uh soundtrack no and i think it was film craft if that's right so it was it was a lucas aid um sport abidanti joshua no one ever moved forward standing still was was the ad and actually the interesting thing i think about the relationship at the time going back to the trust thing i mean we were in the year one of the you know we hadn't got to the year two dip this is very much year one hooray well although actually no sorry i say that year one with me not with the business so actually with the business it probably went back six seven years but certainly with me but what was interesting about that example was we were in a bit of a moment of crisis so we had to figure out we're relaunching the brand we had three years i think a decline we're trying to get the brand back into growth and so we had to bunker down and really understand what you know what how the brand worked um but we landed on really good positioning and we did some very quickly did some great work that then meant that we kind of built this trust and actually where what was interesting about this particular example was it was an idea that was pitched just before Christmas.

13:56And I had a bit of spare budget. And it was just one of those slightly serendipitous things where it's like, just go for it, right? I'm not going to interfere at all. You have permission. That's when we're going to try and do it and just go for it. And actually, weirdly, giving complete freedom to the creative team to just do exactly what they pitched led to some fantastic work. And it was incredibly successful. Well, that's an interesting learning in and of itself, isn't it? Yeah. Just letting them do their thing. having that trust and freedom to experiment as well. No, it was. And I think the interesting thing about it as well is because we were so aligned on the purpose of the brand, because we'd identified this idea of made to move, as people were all designed to move, and LucasA's support is there to help, we were very, very clear on our position.

14:42We were very clear on our mission to get people moving. And we were working with influencers, in this case, Anthony Joshua, because he was about to do one of his biggest ever fights. And we were like, how do we inspire people to move more and be like him. Not obviously to win a heavyweight boxing championship. Obviously, that was an extreme thing. But because we had such a clear idea of what we were trying to do, it just meant when a good idea came up, we knew what it looked like. And we could just back it. And we see that so often, that upfront investment in getting the fundamentals right that eventually end up having a bigger payoff.

15:13And that's something we don't see enough of these days. Yeah, no, it's true. Very true. Let's talk about the work. because one thing that tickled me and made me very happy was to see humour very much back. Actually, I say back in the categories this year, but actually last year I think we saw a bit of a return to humour in some of the wins as well, didn't we? There's certainly evidence that... Yeah, it was, I think, after years of experiencing some of the winners which were very sober, very serious, sometimes purpose-led. Yeah, we saw some levity come back to the work last year. And, you know, we've talked before about how that's quite cyclical, depending on what's happening with the macros.

15:52And so it's refreshing to see some of that work come back. And there was so much commentary at the festival across the stages as well about the qualities of funny and what it does for your selling of your products. It does. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, human cells. Yeah. I mean, the evidence is overwhelming in terms of the, I mean, system when we measure happiness, but even types of happiness. And we can see and we can break it even down into the fact that humour is more effective as a type of happiness than, say, pride, for example. So you can actually even see in the data we track how, you know, a funny story will beat a purposeful story in terms of how people react to this thing.

16:31Not that you can't do purpose, but you can do purpose in funny ways as well. So you can sometimes do both. But it'll be interesting to see what comes through this year. Now we have some dedicated categories across many of the lions that we have. and obviously juries who bring different international experience have a different idea of what funny means so there'll be some interesting conversations well this is what I'm curious about how on earth do you judge what's funny because like you know what a German might think compared to a Nigerian compared to a Singaporean I don't know just picking out three random you know groups of people like what we laugh about could be different right yeah it's very subjective I think that's why it's so important to have that different representation in the room, number one.

17:15But also it's important we ask the question, which we have, why is this funny? Because as you said, funny to someone in one part of the world is not going to be funny to someone else. Yeah, yeah. And we've seen that system one, actually. We did a test for, I think it was Pizza Hut. Yeah. And it was a five star in America. It was three star in the UK. And it was one star in France. And it was very, very funny. I mean, I thought it was hilarious. It was very funny. But that kind of slapstick humour was kind of seen as childish in France. was half the audience found it funny in the UK and everyone was bawling with laughter in the US.

17:46So yeah, definitely some evidence for that. What do you, I mean, you know, Cannes is a bit of a barometer for what we're talking about in the industry and what's happening. What do you think we're going to see this year? What are the kind of big trends, if I can call them that? And should we care? I mean, maybe we shouldn't care about the trends, but what do you think? Yeah, I think it's interesting that the categories where we've seen growth are not necessarily our traditional categories. So creative effectiveness has grown massively year on year, which is very encouraging, I think. But then also things like creative business transformation, commerce, creative data.

18:22So there does seem to be a bit of a shift towards creative marketing rather than traditional craft-based categories, which is still popular. But that's something we're noticing. So I think it'll be really interesting to see some of the winners coming through within those categories, especially. Yeah. Now I must ask you, because every year there is a topic you can't avoid. Last year, you couldn't avoid talking about AI. Are we going to see an AI category, do you think? I think, never say never, but not at the moment, no. I think the interesting thing about it is that it's moving so quickly that it's become ubiquitous.

18:58It sits across absolutely everything, so it doesn't need its own spotlight or moment in the sun. And when it comes to trends, there was a lot of talk about ai last year i think this year there'll be a lot of applied ai across the stages so seeing really how it's being used on a day-to-day basis and also where it's going but it's the trends thing is interesting isn't it because i think if we pay too much attention to it like the metaverse of a few years ago or big data for those of you can remember that on the stages it can too much focus on the trendy and the transient and perhaps not enough on the fundamentals of our industry i agree i don't know if i'm actually this correct it might have been bezos that said tell me what won't change and i'll build my business on that you know and that's so true isn't it like we get distracted by the shiny and the new but actually getting the fundamentals right and creativity is one of the biggest levers probably the biggest lever at your disposal to make a difference to your business and therefore the better we can get at that you know the more more chance to have a success completely agree so can you reveal anything about um any big names going to be it can this year there's there's always there's always a bit of a you know a noise going on about oh you know michelle obama's just just arrived and this sort of thing any any big names this year you can talk about i there's always a few surprises and we deliberately hold back a few slots for that reason we need things to fall into place unfortunately i can't reveal them at this stage but for the folks that are confirmed it'll be the usual mix of industry players but also a lot of people who are adjacent to our industry talking about creativity in its broadest sense and that is some of the content that goes down the best at the festival the surprises the things you weren't expecting but then as i said the very practical stuff the stuff that's going to help you in your day job and hopefully help you make the case for creativity Yeah.

20:52Did Ryan Reynolds come to Cannes? He did a couple of years ago. Yeah, he did. I think that, yeah, if he's already done a turn then it's, because he's on my list of people to have on the show. Interesting. In terms of like someone you can learn a lot about marketing from, I think he's well up there, isn't he? He was great. He was good. Very relevant for our industry because he's in it now. Exactly, yeah. But obviously brings a little bit of star quality as well. Now let's go back to effectiveness. So do you think Cannes will ever be a festival of creative effectiveness? Do you think it can be that?

21:22Or is it more about celebrating the craft over necessarily proving what works? I think it can be both. Because obviously craft plays its own role in effectiveness. But it is interesting and the data points are interesting. As I mentioned, we have a record number of entries in the creative effectiveness lion. Very encouraging to see. we have more marketers and more cmos coming to the festival than ever before and what our audience are telling us is that some of the most valuable content at the festival is the content that we're surfacing to help cmos make the case for creativity so it does feel like there is an appetite to embrace effectiveness but creative effectiveness so to answer your question i think that's already happening yeah that's good i i mean i always had the dilemma of like how do i justify going south of France for an entire week.

22:16So the more you could give the CMOs reason to be there sort of thing, I think the better. You need to badge it. The very serious festival discussing return on investment that your businesses can expect to see from creativity is all going to help, isn't it? I think so. I think a lot of people also come not just for the tools, but in order to get a sense of what's coming as well. For the longest time, you used to think about the awards as a bit of a retrospective because obviously it's been in the market it's being awarded for how it performed in the market but it's really the the insights and the intelligence that you take away from it i'm told by our customers that propels you into the year ahead so that's an interesting way to look at it as well i mean the other the other value that i think is not always recognized is the incredible networking that you can do i mean i mean i describe it like a bit, it's like LinkedIn in real life because I kind of walk down the closet and like, oh, I know you, don't I, from LinkedIn?

23:14Oh, I saw you on the stage, you know, you know, that sort of thing. It's just incredible. It's magical from that perspective, but I don't think there's anything like it in the world where you get so many people that you do business with in one place at one time. And the amount of business that can get done is just, I mean, just for me doing a podcast, for example, I can get 10 of my dream guests in one go in one place, which is amazing. So that I think is a benefit that not everyone I think factors in when they're thinking about going. I think that convergence of so many parties combined with the fact that people's guard is down, I think people are much more accessible.

23:50They're willing to have those serendipitous conversations is another factor that facilitates that networking. So I totally agree. It does. Now there's one new category this year, which I thought was very interesting, is we've got a creator category, haven't we? It's not a category. So it's a three-day experience within the festival itself built around the creator economy. So it was very interesting the last couple of years, we noticed that creative content makers, creators were coming to the festival. We weren't quite sure why. And so after speaking to them and finding out why they had decided to abandon VidCon, which happens practically the same time, to come to Cannes, I think someone summed it up really well by saying, we go to VidCon to see our fans.

24:35We come to Ken Lyons to see the brands. So I think because there is so much opportunity there, we decided to build a three-day delegate experience around it. And that's not just for the creators. It's also for the brands, the platforms, the creative agencies who all want to learn from each other to figure out how they're going to succeed in this quite exciting new part of our industry. Well, it kind of goes back to my previous point about the role of CAN as a business-to-business event, really, which is incredible. I mean, it's why there's so many tech businesses there. Because I wonder, why are all these tech businesses turning up en masse and then realising all the advertisers that fund what they do are here in one place?

25:14So it kind of makes sense when you break it down like that. Yeah. So, I mean, it's an interesting thing. It's not something we were planning. But as with a lot of things which take place at the festival, it's in response to what we're seeing as part of that live LinkedIn, as you describe it. Yeah. Yeah, completely. Now, I wanted to pitch you something. So, if there's one thing that I get asked a lot, and in fact, interesting, in my career, I've spent more of my career with no budget than I have with a budget, right? So, I've had to sort of, in fact, also, if I was to write down my five most creative moments, I mean, a while ago, I did a podcast with Kevin Chesters about creativity.

25:53and in preparation for it, I thought, I'm going to write down my five most creative things I've ever done in my life. What was interesting is four of them had no budget attached to them because when you've got nothing, you really have to get creative in terms of how you solve the problem. And a lot of people that kind of write in about, I say writing, it's like writing letters, it's like Blue Peter. I've got a letter here from young Johnny who would like to ask the following. Anyway, but when people message me about the show, probably the most common request is, can you spend more time talking to brands that have done a lot on a little?

26:29Because most people out there don't have the big budgets to employ the best agencies and spend as much money. I would love to see, and I don't know what you call this, but a zero budget. Zero budget. Zero budget. Well, maybe some budget, but it needs to be like almost no budgets. So like anyone that had just a production budget or they didn't have any media, because I reckon there's something about creativity. I mean, I know Mike Cesario is one of the people that are going to be this year, isn't it? I haven't broken any news. Okay, good. That's public. All right. Just checking. But I mean, what Mike Cesario and the team at Liquid Death have done on limited budget is just incredible.

27:06And their idea that they need to think like an entertainment company, a bit like, you know, we employ people that write hit comedy for Netflix. rather than, you know, because that's the bar, you know, our bar is if we can entertain people, they'll want to share our content for free and we'll build a following. I'd love to see a zero budget line. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's really interesting. We have some categories across the line, which are geared towards low budget. And some of that work is fascinating because actually it's the kind of work, you know, if you think about the basement in the Palais where all the work is shown and we have tours of the work as well, quite often you'll get someone doing a tour which is geared around low budget work for that reason and also um people taking ideas from different categories and transferring them into their own um so yeah i think that's really interesting keep keep coming with your pictures i'll keep working i'll keep working the angles good good good um any advice for anyone who's maybe listening and thinking i'd love to enter a enter for a lion and try and win it any tips from someone who would know uh i mean obviously it's jury led so you know you can't influence a jury or that kind of thing but any tips on from all the work you've seen the type of approach that will give you a good chance of success what are you looking for yeah i think for the jury they have a two minute window typically the the film that you're watching because it is a film that's the most efficient way to do it is telling a story about your work and it's amazing how many people first of all believe they have to fill that time you know if you can tell your story in under two minutes why would you not?

28:39And really reimagine it for a new audience. You know, sometimes you're so close to the work because it's your baby that you want to stuff this film full of absolutely everything rather than just strip it back and distill it down to its essence, really. So sometimes the lack of signposting and having the audience in mind, in other words, the jury, is a massive distraction. So I would just rethink your piece of work and how best to present it to a jury who are looking at hundreds of these every day back to back and and are they they like all in one room looking at together is that how it works or are they somewhere spread out across how does the process itself work it's exactly that so by the time they get to can they will gather in sometimes windowless rooms within the palais i don't want to show them the beach and uh they will watch case film after case film and then obviously they get to the exciting part which is discussing the shortlist and deciding what's worthy of a line.

29:39Wow. So you've got two minutes to stand out and be remembered. Absolutely. By the sounds of it. Amongst hundreds? I mean, how many would the typical jury look through? In a day, they could look up to about 200 pieces sometimes. That's intense, isn't it? It is a bit. Yeah, it's full on. And there's a lot of juries you need as well, a lot of people to hire onto the jury. Yeah. So it's 10 people per jury. we took uh dan wyden's model of having 10 people for titanium that's the optimum number really it's small enough and intimate enough to have good discussions but then it's enough people to have the right representation that you need for a global jury but um it seems to work pretty well they tell us they enjoy it anyway excellent i thought i'd move on to talk a little bit about um you and your role as ceo actually i thought it was fascinating i know when we were chatting about this before and i'll quote your own words here because i thought it was lovely how you put this.

30:33You said, why did Essential give the Lions CEO job to kids who had never run a business before? Which I thought was great. Why did they do that? Yeah, I should ask them that really. How did you get the job? Well, I've been with Lions for about 10 years. I come from an agency background, took an entry level position at Lions back in 2008. It was meant to be a stopgap. I thought it'd be an amazing way to see thousands of pieces of great work before going on to my next gig. And then the company grew and I put my hand up and tried on lots of different roles before an opportunity came to step up and actually lead the business.

31:11And I nearly talked myself out of it because as I said to you, I'd never seen a P &L before. I'd never run a business and I had quite limited experience because I'd only really worked for Ken Lyons in a grown-up job. And it was only after having a really very valuable conversation with a mentor of mine who just reframed the whole thing and said, yes, but obviously when you take on a job, there are parts that you learn and some things which are really difficult to establish over time. In other words, experience. You can learn how to run a P &L. What you have is 10 years worth of experience in our industry, being very close to our customers.