Cannes Lions Through the Eyes of a Junior — Part I

Cannes Lions Festival through the eyes of a junior

• The Cannes Lions Festival experience provides access to exclusive knowledge about the creative industry, sessions with international speakers and the opportunity to learn through practice and global networking.
• Key lessons for personal branding include the courage to step out of the comfort zone, the relevance of accumulated knowledge, assertive communication, relationship building, and dedication to excellence.
• Artificial intelligence, AR and VR are tools that complement human creativity, allowing specialists to create more effective campaigns, but they do not replace people's talent and experience.

Experience at Cannes Lions and Roger Hatchuel Academy

When you're a Communication student, you interact frequently with those industry reference campaigns and you're always told about the biggest creativity festival in the world — Cannes Lions.As a junior, you can only dream of getting there, among the most talented people in the world, and I was not afraid to dream.

After a scholarship offered by the agency for school courses The Alternative School for Creative Thinking, we learned that this school is also the ambassador of Cannes Lions in Romania, as well as of the educational programs within the festival.

So, through support #EyeTemple, we applied to Roger Hatchuel Academy, an academy dedicated to students under 23, with a 2-minute video in which I introduced myself and told about what creativity means to me.

Now I'm back home after a week where I thought I was living a dream, in which I learned, had hundreds of “aha moments” and met 36 wonderful people from 30 different countries.

In addition, we listened to speakers from different fields who introduced us to what lies beyond the curtain of success and taught us, first of all, how to be honest with ourselves.

Personal brand: essential lessons for development

In an increasingly technological world, it's easy to overlook exactly what makes us human. This is what we learned in an intensive lesson on personal branding:

B — BRAVE

Many times when you are out of your comfort zone, even if you are afraid and feel the anxiety increasing, the only way to evolve is to act scared, embrace fear and understand that this is the only way you will learn and gain experience.

R — RELEVANT

Listen to the people around you to be listened to in turn. Accumulate as much information as possible, read books, learn new things, listen to podcasts, anything to develop your knowledge.

A — ASSERTIVE

Set your barriers with the people around you in a polite way and don't accept disrespect. Ask for what's due, ask for what you deserve, and don't hesitate to communicate your needs.

N — NOURISHING

Create friendly bonds with people around you, offer unconditional help, ask people how they feel, and be genuinely interested in what they have to say. Be the person people can turn to when they have good news, but also the person others can count on hard.

D — DEVOTED

Always be guided by the premise “if you can do one thing better, do it”,work with passion and enthusiasm and give yourself the effort to constantly improve the work you do, this way you will evolve and manage to get where you propose.

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Communication

Artificial intelligence was the star topic this year, and the common denominator of all the speakers was customer orientation and how AI can help us communicate more effectively with them.

Much has been said about AI, AR and VR and how they have the power to revolutionize the world of communication. Emphasis has been placed on the fact that they are just tools through which people in communication, advertising and design can create impactful campaigns and by no means replacements for these specialists.

Future trends will be based on “AI with the human touch”,because emotions, insights people resonate with, and the power of campaigns to generate change for the better for consumers will matter more.

Some ideas that have stuck in my mind are:

Balance in the use of artificial intelligence

The approach we need to take when it comes to using this tool is bold & responsible. Although there is some inconsistency between the two terms, the important thing is to find the balance, as in any other aspect of our lives.

Artificial Intelligence Boosts Human Creativity

AI does not replace human creativity, but enhances it, makes it possible and liberates it, being the medium through which art comes to life. AI and art do not disagree, but complement each other and save time and resources, bringing artists' visions to life faster.

Artificial intelligence comes with opportunities for creative people

In changing times, creative people thrive because they try new things, explore, and discover new possibilities to create. We must not let ourselves be distracted or intimidated by all the noise caused by AI. This moment is conducive to doing what creative people know best: play, explore.

Specialists remain important in the era of artificial intelligence

Last but not least, it is worth remembering that there will always be a need for talented people in writing or design, as there is a need for specialists who know what to ask from artificial intelligence and experienced professionals who know how to clean the inputs coming from these tools.

The important thing is that we are still at the beginning of the journey with AI and no one owns all the answers. We are all in the testing stage, so all we have to do is research, explore.

What lessons we learned from Cannes Lions

In addition to industry insights, there has also been a lot of talk about creative people. We were given tips and lessons from our own experiences, and below you can find what I found most important to remember.

Listen to your instinct

Another very popular topic at the festival was the importance of instinct. There has been talk of having to be honest with ourselves and not compromise when it comes to the environment in which we learn and grow.

Get out of the comfort zone

It is a waste of time to worry about what the world thinks of us. The important thing is to be aware of what makes us happy and what scares us, to differentiate between fear (which makes us act) and uncertainty (which makes us fearful).

It is also important to embrace the fear of making mistakes, especially if we are aware of how much we can learn from them.

Do not detract from your successes

When you have successes, whether in your personal or professional life, do not diminish them, take care not to fall into the trap of impostor syndrome and celebrate your successes at every opportunity. It will motivate you to do more and better and will give you a map of your personal progress.

Set high goals

An effective way to ensure that we are on the right track in career, but also in life, is to set high goals that scare us. The lenses are like a GPS that guides us and that notifies us when we arrive at our destination. If we allow ourselves to set goals that are difficult to achieve, we will already be one step closer to them.

So...

these were just part of the lessons learned at Cannes Lions 2023, in the following article we talk about the consumer of the year 2025,about his feelings and we present some of the winning works at the festival. Stay tuned!

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