[Analysis] How to win a Cannes Lion 2023: Reside in USA, UK or Brazil; Be Inclusive, Talk about Climate Change, use AI

This year, once again, a massive amount of creative work was submitted for Cannes Lions, the largest advertising awards on Earth. To be precise, there were 26,992 entries for the 2023 edition, which is 6 percent more than in 2022.

How much does it cost to submit? The easiest answer is: it varies. The longer you wait, the more you pay to submit a case. The cheapest categories this year were Design, Direct, For Change, Industry Craft, Innovation, Outdoor, Print & Publishing, Radio & Audio, Sustainable Development Goals.

In these categories, submitting was only 630 euros per case, that is, if you submitted by March 9th at the latest. If you waited until April 6th, it was 1050 euros.

In most categories, let's mention a few: Brand Experience & Activation, Creative B2B, Creative Business, and Transformation Lions, the entry fee was 790 euros, gradually increasing to 1210 euros.

Submitting for Titanium Lions costs 2180 to 2600 euros

There were two exceptions this year. Submitting for Creative Effectiveness Lions costs 1705 euros (increasing to 2125 euros).

Submitting for Titanium Lions costs 2180 euros (increasing to 2600 euros).

Let's not make it complicated; this year, you paid about 1000 euros per case to submit to Cannes Lions, which generated approximately 27 million euros in revenue for the organization.

A pass to experience everything happening at the Palais, including presentations by world stars like Halle Berry, Spike Lee, and will.i.am, cost 3895 euros this year. Young professionals received (very) significant discounts, and journalists had free access.

Big winner USA

Cannes Lions had 30 categories this year. That doesn't mean 30 Lions were awarded. No, there were 934 of them. So, the chance of winning a Lion in 2023 was 3.46 percent.

The big winner of Cannes Lions 2023 is the USA, with an impressive 219 trophies, followed by the UK (109) and Brazil (89).

A few notable scores include India with 24 Lions, New Zealand with 21, and Poland with 12.

Country	Cannes Lions
USA	219
UK	109
Brazil	89
France	64
Canada	53
Argentina	37
Australia	32
Spain	29
India	24
Germany	23
Italy	22
New Zealand	21
Mexico	21
UAE	20
Japan	19
Sweden	15
Colombia	14
Poland	12

 

New Zealand and the UAE win the most Lions per million inhabitants

The USA is very large, while other countries are quite small, so we have created the following map: the number of Lions won by countries per capita - expressed in the number of Lions won per million inhabitants.

The big winners are New Zealand and the UAE, with 4.3 and 2.0 Lions per million inhabitants, respectively. You're just lucky if you live there, with all those high-quality campaigns being poured over you as a consumer.

Good scores are also achieved by the UK (1.66), Sweden (1.47), and Canada (1.41). Countries like Lebanon (0.55), Honduras (0.54), and Panama (0.51) outperform countries such as Germany (0.29), Belgium (0.26), and the Netherlands (0.23) by a significant margin.

Outlier Gibraltar

An interesting addition to mention. Although not visible on the map, Gibraltar won 2 Lions, resulting in a score of 67.6 Lions per million inhabitants. Just for reference, Gibraltar has a population of 29,581.

Country	Lions Per Milion	Cannes Lions
New Zealand	4,26	21
UAE	2,00	20
UK	1,66	109
Sweden	1,47	15
Canada	1,41	53
Australia	1,26	32
France	0,94	64
Denmark	0,85	5
Argentina	0,81	37
Israel	0,81	7
Norway	0,73	4
Finland	0,72	4
USA	0,66	219
Singapore	0,64	4
Uruguay	0,59	2
Portugal	0,58	6
Spain	0,58	29
Lebanon	0,55	3

 

Africa wins only 1.3 percent of the Lions

When we look at continents, Europe emerges as the major winner. Prominent contributions come from the UK (109 Lions) and France (64 Lions). North America follows, with the USA (219 Lions) and Canada (53 Lions). Latin America performs remarkably well with 19.7 percent. Asia claims 10.4 percent of the awards, while Australia (including New Zealand) secures 5.7 percent of the Lions.

The festival has been emphasizing inclusion in recent years, but when you see that Africa, with its population of over a billion people, only gaines 1.3 percent of the Lions - with South Africa (8 Lions), Kenya (3 Lions), and Nigeria (1 Lion) as the prize winners - it indicates that there is still a long way to go in the global ecosystem of advertising in terms of inclusivity.

81.6 percent of the Lions are won by entries from countries where English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French is spoken.

This brings us to what we believe is the most remarkable graph. 51 percent of the Lions are won by entries from countries where English is an official language. If we add Spanish to that, the percentage goes up to 64.5 percent. 81.6 percent of the Lions are won by entries from countries where English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French is spoken.

18.4 percent of the Lions were awarded to entries from countries where all other languages in the world are spoken. These include languages like German, Italian, Dutch, a Scandinavian language, an Eastern European language, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean - and these are just the languages from countries that have won a Lion. Countless entries were submitted from other countries and did not win.

76.7 percent of the jury chairs come from English-speaking countries

An analysis of the 30 jury chairs shows that 76.7 percent of them come from English-speaking countries. 86.7 percent of the jury chairs come from countries where English, Spanish, or Portuguese is spoken.

How to win at Cannes Lions 2024

Based on the above analysis, to have the greatest chance of winning a Lion in 2024, you should:

• Make your work in English;
• Submit your work from an agency in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. If you don't have an agency there, either open an agency or acquire one in one of these countries;
• Make your work about inclusivity or climate change, preferably both. If that's not possible, at least make it relevant to society
• Create your work using at least 5 AI programs.

Good luck!

 

Text Bas Vlugt: founder and editor-in-chief of Marketing Report.

Maps and graphs Thijs Vlugt: data scientist at Marketing Report.