157. What Makes a Creativity Festival Thrive for 70 Years?
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Well, thank you so much for being on my show. Thank you for having me. As most of my listeners know, most of my career history was in marketing. And in the marketing world, there's only one forum or festival of creativity that's really worth spending the money and the time and the energy to go to, which is Ken Lyons International Festival of Creativity.

So I've been going to the Creativity Festival for many, many years when I was at WPP and I really enjoyed it. And then pandemic hit. Yes, it certainly did. Infected us all. I know. But I'm so happy to see the festival return and I think even more successfully globally now that it's a digital edition.

So for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the festival and I always want to talk to someone senior about the whole history of the festival. It's 70 years, I think, this year. We are coming into 71 years, yes. Oh my god, there you go. A festival that can survive this long. You've been through a lot, the first festival itself, right? So I always wanted to talk to someone senior to talk about the history of the festival,

challenges and opportunities in the future because I know you've gone through the acquisition or your parent company has gone through the acquisition. Yes, that's right. So I'm very lucky today that I have the global CEO of Lions. Lions is the parent company to Ken Lions International Festival of Creativity and also WALK and also Contagious and most recently Effie's.

Of course, Effie. Yes, congratulations. So I've got Simon Cook, Global CEO of CanLions. Hello, Simon. Hello. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. Yeah, you too. And congratulations on the promotion to the Lions. Oh, thank you very much. It's a privilege.

First of all, explain to our listeners the difference between Lions and Cannes Lions. I said it briefly, but I'd like to hear it from you. Yeah, of course. Well, I think most people would be familiar with the festival itself. So Cannes Lions, the International Festival of Creativity, has been running now, as you say, for 71 years. It's very much a destination for everyone in the business of creativity.

Maybe 20 years ago, dominated by the creative agencies. More recently, and we can get into this, there is a true intersection of many different parties from the industry coming together to do business, to be inspired, to celebrate the very best creative work in the world, and to network and to learn.

And Lions is our parent company, if you like. And at the heart of this master brand, we have this very firm belief that creativity matters. But also across all the different brands that we have, the common mission is that we want to help brands, especially and marketers, not only create the case for creativity, but also to help them create the case for creativity.

but to really get cut through in the boardroom. You know, it's very, very difficult, as we know, to get what we all do, marketing or creativity, on the boardroom growth agenda. So the more we can give them the evidence, the tools, the data to be able to do that,

It's great for everyone. It means that we're able to prioritise creativity and brand, produce better work. Hopefully better work is more effective work. And then that obviously has an impact in culture, in the world, in society. So that's our grand aim, if you like.

Is that what kept you here for so long and still going, right? How long have you been with Ken Lyons? Coming up to 16 years, I was... 16? One six. Oh my God! Yeah. Wow. So a long time ago, I started out in agencies. Did you join at age 15 or something? It's very kind. I think it's just good lighting in the room. Yeah, so ex-agency, so I understood...

Cannes Lions before I joined. Sure. Worked for 10 years in various roles because the company was always growing. There was always something new to do and own to help with that growth. And then five years ago, I stepped up to lead Cannes Lions and

And then more recently, we're across the portfolio of brands you described. Okay. So I want to go back to the history of Cannes Lions. It didn't always start in Cannes. No, indeed. Where did it start? It's a really interesting history. If we think back to just after the Second World War,

At the time, Cannes was much more of a fishing village than it was the city it is today. And as people are probably aware, most of Europe was slightly decimated after the Second World War. So as part of their building back plans, the mayor of Cannes at the time decided to create...

Cannes as a bit more of a destination for events and invented the film festival, which most people would be aware of.

And it was shortly after that that the advertisers and big associations related to advertising got together and said, "Do you know what? Sometimes the ads that we create for TV and cinema, we think are even better than the film itself. So why don't we create..." You're laughing because you agree. That's very ad-mad. Yes. We don't want to be the unsung hero. Exactly. So why don't we create our own festival?

And so in 1954, in Venice, not Cannes. I know. The, the,

the first awards took place and that's really where the lion itself comes from. So if you've been to Venice you'll notice that there is an emblem of a winged lion in many different places across the city but most famously in St Mark's Square. There is a huge podium with a winged lion on top of it and that's what the trophy was modelled

because the first festival took place in Venice. Oh, I see. That I didn't know. I've never been to Venice, so I don't know. So the trophy has evolved since then. In the 80s, it was changed before my time.

But the Lion of St. Mark, which is our lifetime achievement award that we give out, is still in the original trophy model. Wow. And so it stayed in Venice for a few years, and it wasn't really until much later that the festival found its home in Cannes and has been there ever since. And the festival rotated between Venice and Cannes for a while, right? Exactly, exactly, yes. And I guess it's the Cannes government or the French government

finally convince the organizer. Indeed, yeah. It was very funny actually because we still have some of the records back at that time and we have a record which is essentially on a written piece of paper the pros and cons for hosting the first festival in Venice.

You still have that in the archive? We do. And under the cons list, the reasons not to have it in Venice was because it's too expensive.

Which is hilarious today when you think about it, because obviously Cannes is such a premium place. Exactly. You could also be accused of that. Oh my God. So how has the festival evolved? Because I know that, like you said, it first started by, I guess, Adnan behind film. Exactly. So it was all about, maybe back then it was about, I don't know, music, it's about special effects, it's about the ad perspective of the film.

But now it's a festival all about creativity, not just ads anymore. Yeah, so in 1954 there was just one award, one lion, and that was for TV and cinema advertising. And then for the longest time that was the case. And it wasn't really until the early 90s that we introduced a second lion, which was for print and publishing and poster advertising.

And at the time, you can imagine there was uproar in the industry. Yeah. Because, you know, you're taking the purity away from this single very special award we have, which is hilarious today because obviously we cover the full spectrum of creativity. Everything from craft and classic creativity, we would call it, through to...

lines that recognize commerce, business transformation, creative data. So we're representing the full spectrum of creativity today, ultimately because we believe that creativity can come from anywhere. Right. Your parent company and now you in charge, have you ever thought about moving the festival somewhere else? Because you've been in Cannes ever since, I don't know, 60s, 70s, right? And then there are more and more people coming to the festival.

Is Cannes still big enough to host so many events and so many attendees? Have you thought about moving it somewhere bigger, easier to get to? Do you know what? It's a really interesting question because it's naturally something that we revisit from time to time and think about. We have a long-standing relationship with the city and the product itself, the festival, is so tightly intertwined with the brand itself. Right.

And so even, you know, a long time ago now, when we've been through exercises to explore other cities, and obviously as part of that, we talk to our customers about what they think as well. The common consensus seems to be you should not decouple the two.

I think the other interesting thing about Cannes as a city is that it is set up to be a bit of a campus for that festival. You know, if you think about events that are in major global hubs like London or New York, I think the problem there sometimes for those events is that they are competing with London and New York. Whereas if you look at perhaps South by Southwest in Austin or Davos and Cairns,

It's very contained, it's very community-led. And it's very easy to, as you know because you've been many times, bump into many people and have really worthwhile interactions with people that you would never normally get to meet. And your attendees profile also has evolved these many decades. It started with ad men and ad women. Also you got a lot of marketers as well taking it very seriously. Yeah, so as you said, predominantly

ad people people in production and then about 15 20 years ago we saw the first big cohort of marketers come to the festival actually it was png led by jim stengel at the time right and he recognized because he's a very smart man that this was a great way to expose his team to some of the most inspirational work in the world because he understood the power of and effectiveness of

Lion winning creativity. Right. And that really started the trend. And it's obviously something we've encouraged over the years. But now marketers or people on the brand side or clients, whatever we call them, they now make up about 35% of the overall delegation. Wow. But we're also welcoming people from...

breadth of countries that we've never seen before and from different specialisms and industries so now we have people from technology the platforms media entertainment music fashion

So it's a real melting pot. When did the tech platform start coming or taking a major part of the festival? Probably about 10 years ago now, maybe slightly more actually. Starting to come because of the opportunity that's there. And that's really why a lot of people are coming to the festival now. Because as they tell us, everyone is there. So it's really easy to have convenient conversations to do business.

But also to kind of figure out where marketing is going in the future by having those all-important conversations. But at the heart of it, the thing that remains the same, of course, is the recognition, the benchmark for creativity that we have in the awards itself. Yeah. And you've got some very big-name celebrities coming to the festival as well. Sometimes. Last year, you got Elon Musk. Yes, yeah. And I think not long ago, you've got Mark Zuckerberg.

Yes, indeed. We've had some very high-profile people over the years, exactly. When big celebrities like that come to the festival, do you or the agency not worry that

the festival might be overshadowed by these celebrities because in a way they're probably part of the ads circle, right? Because they do brand endorsement, you know, advertising and all that. But they are them. They're show business. You're not worried that the festival will be overshadowed?

I think it's about striking the right balance. If we do have, to use your word, celebrities coming to the festival, the prerequisite that we have in place is that it has to be of relevance to our audience. So a few years ago, we had the very famous actor Ryan Reynolds who came to the festival. Now, he actually is an ad man in his spare time. You know, he owns an agency. He produces some of the most effective ads out there right now on social media.

And so just getting him to talk to that rather than the things that make him celebrity is the most important thing. That is so interesting because before that I didn't know. I didn't know that he was actually also a silent partner. Well, I think that's why it's mutually beneficial because it's good for his exposure. He gets to introduce himself to that audience because a lot of people previously, like yourself, would have just thought of him as a Hollywood actor. Exactly.

Can you walk our listeners through how can Lions select or decide on who to invite to what stages of your festival?

Because in China, a lot of the festivals, you have to become a sponsor. If you become a sponsor, you almost have a guaranteed seat on stage, right? But I know that's not how Ken Lyons Festival works. So do you want to explain that to our listeners so they get it right once and for all? Yeah, of course. Money cannot buy you seats on stage. 100%.

Unfortunately not. It probably would be much easier for us if that was the mechanism we use, but we like to take the harder path. You know, for us, it's about fairness and inclusivity and the individual quality and merits of the pieces being put forward. So we call it our call for content. Coming up very soon, actually. I know. We open and anyone in the world can apply. It's an application process.

So if you have a piece of thought leadership or a point of view on something that you want to put in front of that global audience and can, then you can submit an idea. And then our team internally will go through a very rigorous process to to curate the very best program in the world for that particular year.

And then we work very closely with each of those speakers to help them develop their content and make sure it's sort of a standard and adheres to our values in a way that makes us feel comfortable. Yeah, I've been through that process myself. Some ideas got rejected. I know what it's like. But I'm very privileged that some of those got through. I remember this onstage conversation I did with Tencent's executive, Davis Lin.

So your content review committee, I think all of them are English speakers. So when you say the submission is open to the world, there will be countries that English is not the native language for them, right?

How do they, what would be your suggest to them so that in the way that they write up their application so that it's not hindered by the language barrier? I think either translation or getting in touch with us to express an interest so that we can help with that translation if necessary. And then for us, it's making sure that our internal panel is representative of society as well. So I think with the introduction of our, well, recent appointment of our chief DEI officer,

He will work very closely with our different teams, including our content curation team, to make sure that the program that we put together is reflecting society rather than reflecting the industry. Okay. Do you get pressure from big advertising groups, though? Because there are obviously a lot of major past purchasers, sponsors. Would they not come to you and say,

look, we're inviting this, we are thinking about inviting this celebrity. So can you at least give us some indication that you will give us some guarantee of stage, whether it's a center stage or it's a fringe stage?

I think naturally, because we're all humans, we sometimes try to bypass the system. But the thing that is most important to us, similarly to the awards, is our integrity. So anyone, anyone, even if it's our biggest customer, if they want to bring someone, they have to go through the same process as everyone else. They have to submit that idea so that we can put it through its paces and make sure it's appropriate for our audience.

Once submission got selected, you said that your team will work closely with the speakers on what content they should start preparing for the onstage performance, if you like. A lot of the speakers from China will think it's a great opportunity to build exposure, so they all want to hard sell themselves or hard sell the company they represented. How do you get them to agree to tone it down?

Do you know what? That's such a good question. It's not a tricky question because I want my listeners to know. It's really hard. And do you know what? I think a lot of people just don't even realize that they're doing a hard sell because they're usually talking about something that's very close to their hearts. Yes. So they're very passionate about it. Yeah. Sometimes that can come across as a sell. Yeah.

So I think it's just very important for our team to make people aware that

that they don't need to sell, they need to explain. And if necessary, we'll help them tone that down because we know based on the feedback that we get from our audience that they do not want to be sold to. And so the things that really resonate are things of interest that inspire, that offer a different point of view rather than the hard sell that they're used to perhaps in their day-to-day jobs.

I've been doing my podcast for the last six years. I've had a lot of brands, marketeers coming onto my show as well. I can resonate so strongly with what you just said. Tell me. Every episode, if the brands or marketeers ignore our advice, really want a hard sell, you can see from the reviews or the feedback from the listeners, because you got real-time, not real-time, but feedback from the listeners, they can be cruel. Right.

That's brilliant. That can be really cruel, especially the podcast listeners in China. The reason why they invested time, I think in a way similar to your festival, they will give you half an hour of their time listening to you. They don't want to listen to your heart cell. They could have just watched an ad, right? So they want to listen from you something with substance that they can really take away, internalize it. It becomes their knowledge, right?

But a hot sell is not really delivering any of those to them. I think also, and I guess the same applies to advertising as well, the world is saturated in content. You know, there is a lot of advertising in the world, there is a lot of content in the world, and our attention spans are getting smaller and smaller. So the fight for attention is very real. The impetus on people to inform and entertain rather than sell, as you say, is so important.

And as you said, if people don't like it, they will turn off very quickly. At the festival, you have center stage, main stage, which is Palais, right? In the heart, yeah. But you also have other smaller stages surrounding the Palais.

How did you decide what content goes to the center stage, what content go to other stages? Because there are contents, and not necessarily bigger stage the better. Because your content at smaller stage, you get more intimate with your audience, right? So how did you make decision?

I think the misconception is that some people think if you're a really big name, then you get the big stage. And sometimes the big names think that they deserve that as well, as you can imagine. Yeah, I was going to ask, how do you fend off the celebrity thinking, I deserve ballet? But as much as possible, our content team are really focused on what's the message that needs to be delivered here? Yeah. What's the most effective way to do that?

So although someone may put forward a panel discussion or a keynote, our advice to them might be, you know, based on our audience needs, because we speak to them all the time, this would be a great workshop.

because people are dying to find out the how-to. Increasingly, our audience members do not want to be passive audience members sat there just taking in a keynote. They are spending, as you said, a lot of time, a lot of money to be there. And so the return on investment for a lot of people is that they want to immediately understand how to do something and implement it into their day-to-day when they get home.

So to answer your question, it's down to variety of formats that often dictate where people will be placed. I remember the first time I attended the festival, this was many years ago. Go on, tell us. Before I went, I always wondered why the festival needs the full week. Then I went, I'm like, oh, now I realise. Because it's more than just a stage, you know, sharing or workshop.

But there's a lot of things going on in the entire city. Yes. And you've got outside of the main theater, you've got a little, what do you call this? Cabana? Cabanas, yes. Cabanas.

You've also got outside, you've got agencies setting up their own sort of private area, having their own small talks. You've got sponsors setting up their own space. There's a lot going on. And in the restaurants and bars and what have you, right, till late hours. I realized that you do need that whole week to, first of all, maximize your content access as much as possible, but also networking.

Yeah, I think, as I mentioned, because of the mix of people there and because of the access you have to these people and the quality of those conversations, what we're told is that the amount of business that you can generate within those five days is invaluable. And so I think the temptation when you're there is to perhaps overschedule.

You know, you have people that fill, especially if they've not been before, who will fill every hour of every single day, quite often going late into the evening as well. But as you know, Bessie, some of the best experiences at the festival happen because of serendipity. Yeah.

So my biggest tip or advice to people who are fortunate enough to go is make sure you carve out a time of not having dedicated meetings because you'll be amazed at who you bump into and what kind of opportunities bubble up. Yeah, manage to squeeze in some shopping as well.

Yeah, or a little trip on a boat. I mean, it's a very nice part of the world as well, so there's lots to do there. I thought some tech company is quite smart to hire a boat and take you out there because you can't really go anywhere. You're sort of stuck on the boat, right? It's a little respite from the rest of the city. Some of the guests to my podcast and also my listeners are new and upcoming brands in China.

and they all have aspiration of becoming a global brand. And I think this will be a great festival for them to participate. But obviously they're probably not that familiar. Hopefully after this episode they'll be more familiar with it. But if there are new brands coming out of China and they wanted to set foot into the festival, what would be your advice to them in terms of where to start? I think the best place to start is by speaking to us directly.

Because if we understand what your objective is or your intention is for your brand over the next few years, then we can help guide and co-create a journey with you. As you said, there's so much to do now at the festival and so much opportunity.

It's about using or making those five days work really hard for you. Yeah. Make sure that you're getting what you need. I'm always amazed at the number of people that come because they've got eight problems to solve within that week. So I guess my other advice would be come with a single intention and

Come with some focus of what you want out of that week and then let us help curate something that's going to be appropriate for you to help you problem solve that. There might be a known brand in China but outside of China not yet. So when they reach out to your team members, will your team member be like, "I've never heard of this brand." I'm sure they've got emails from all over the world, right?

We're quite used to it because we have a first timer program. That's the name of it. So we obviously know that if it's your first time coming to the festival, it's going to be pretty overwhelming. So just providing some handholding there and understanding how we can help people get the best out of it is really important to us.

Oh, wow. That I didn't know. First time we're programmed. Fantastic. We need to have that contact email in our show notes. Yeah, we'll absolutely supply that. And, you know, the introduction to that festival week is also done in 12 different languages.

So we make sure that it's accessible to people coming from all over the world as well. Oh, wow. You now, I think started last year, you have a creator pass. Yes, indeed. Yeah. A lot of my listeners are actually podcasters and influencers, I think, on the China, Chinese platforms. So what's the difference between creator pass and the regular pass, other than it's cheaper?

It is a lot cheaper. Which is a good thing you're doing, book creator. Thank you so much. Well, I think the trend, Bessie, is that over time, rather than just having one or two passes, which are all purpose, because we have so many different people representing different facets of the industry coming, that's a lot of different needs that need to be met and a lot of different budget sizes as well.

So this year we introduced a new pass for startup businesses, which is at a lower price point. Okay. We introduced our ERA pass. ERA stands for Equity, Representation and Access.

So what we're going to do, and it's our commitment going forward, is that we are going to gift up to 2 million euros worth of passes to people who would never normally get the chance to go. Wow. And so that's application based. Anyone in the world can apply and you'll get a free pass.

And then with creator, that's a really interesting one. It's not something we'd set out to introduce. But in 2023, we noticed that there was an influx of creators, social media creators, content creators coming to the festival. And we weren't really sure why. What are you talking about? They're part of creativity. Well, the reason I say that is because...

As I'm sure a lot of your listeners are aware, traditionally, Cannes Lions ran at the same time as VidCon, which is a really big conference that attended by creators. And so we spoke to them and when we asked them, why are you here? They said, well, you know, in the past, we go to VidCon to meet our fans. We are coming to Cannes Lions to meet the brands.

And so really it's about monetization. Of course. But also all parties involved, it transpired. We're really trying to figure out their strategy when it comes to how to best utilize creator or really tap into the creator economy. So brands, agencies, platforms, creators, a lot of them are trialing ways of working, but there's no fixed way of doing that.

And so the program itself around creators was about getting these parties to come together and actually talk about some of the business challenges that they have. So rather than it be a straightforward festival experience, it was very much about co-creation and networking and assessing and hopefully fixing some of their biggest business problems in this space. Okay. Well, I'm figuring out something for next year. Hopefully I can...

bring together a small group of creators, podcasters from China, and then come over to your festival. Because I think a lot of them have never been to Ken Lyons. Well, if you do that, Bessie, my commitment to you is that we'll help curate a program for them. Woohoo! We heard it on record. Now we have to do it. Exactly. Can I ask you about the business model of the festival? I mean, for a festival to be celebrating 71st years,

financial has to be strong in order to survive these many years. I know your parent company is a listed company, but I don't want to pry into the details, but can you explain to our listeners the various streams or source of revenue that can lie and generate it? Yeah, of course. If we start with the festival, because that's the longest running asset that we have,

The revenue streams there are entry fees. Everything that gets entered to be judged by international jurors. The work then goes on to win lions. Delegate fees, which we've discussed. You buy a ticket to attend the festival. And also sponsorship opportunities or partnerships that we create, experiences that we create throughout the week. So those are the main three. And then outside of that, especially since the pandemic, for obvious reasons...

We've accelerated our strategy to be a meaningful and useful brand to people throughout the year. And so that's really doubling down on digital and subscription. So we have platforms where you can access the work, understand how it was made and

And that's used by marketers and creatives all over the world. And then the third part to that throughout the year is our advisory business that we've created. So consultancy services, mostly for brands who want to understand how to embed a culture that makes great creative inevitable. So that's how it works broadly. It's also smaller revenue streams, but those are the biggies.

And the festival's relationship with the city of Cannes, is it a loose-loose? You just host it there, so all the retail, business, hotel, it's completely separated from the festival, right? There's no strong... Completely separate. So the common misconception that I've heard over the years is that we get a cut of every glass of rosé. We

Which that was the case. That's a lot of rosé being consumed. Which that was the case. Yeah. But no, it's not. We have a great relationship with the city. We've obviously been there for a really long time. But it's very much a partnership.

So because of that great partnership, they're able to help us unlock infrastructure as the festival grows. But that's where the relationship starts and finishes. Got it. On the entry fee, I know it's not cheap. I think for a multinational agency group, they can afford it.

But for smaller agencies, I have heard from smaller but very brilliant agencies, independent agencies in China, they really wanted to enter more but they just couldn't afford. So in the end, they can only pick one or two categories. Is there any sort of incentive scheme to encourage more smaller independent agencies to participate?

I think on the awards front, it's an interesting one because we have to have a level playing field because obviously some of our biggest customers have offices, agencies all over the world. Yeah. What we don't want to do is...

be accused potentially of creating pockets of the world where there is an unfair advantage to win. But what I would say is that the trend that we've seen over the last few years is a lot of either first-time entrants or people entering in lower volumes are

having a higher conversion. So I think more and more as we create even more rigor around our judging process and make sure that we have adequate representation of people actually judging the work, then we're starting to see a lot of first time winners. So in 2023, for example, Nigeria won its first lion.

And that's becoming increasingly common, that countries who perhaps didn't have a look in before because they enter in the low numbers are now starting to see that kind of return, which is great to see. Yeah.

Let's talk about the global expansion. Sure. It has always been in Cannes. I mean, even like Davos, they got summer Davos in Dalian or Qingdao, right? And they've got smaller Davos elsewhere. TED also got TEDx everywhere, really. Yes. But Cannes has been just Cannes. Why? Which I think is brilliant, but I'd like to know why.

I think there's a couple of things there. We have smaller regional events. So we have Spikes Asia and Dubai Links and Eurobest. And Eurobest itself has been running for over 35 years. They are regional award shows, first and foremost. So they're helping people celebrate at a local level, especially if some of those entrants feel that the global stage is not quite attainable yet. So it acts as a bit of a stepping stone.

And throughout the year in those markets, we are creating smaller, local, more nuanced experiences and events throughout the year. And then in combination with that, as we mentioned before, it's making sure that we're offering both digital and consultancy services throughout the year that are actually helping people grow.

be better at their jobs. That's how we see our presence really globally throughout the year and beyond the festival. I think creating a Cannes Lions in a different part of the world, I think the risk there is that you're asking too much of people, but also there's a risk of brand dilution as well. Mm-hmm.

Like all companies in the world, you went through pandemic. We certainly did, I see. Yes. And you're still standing strong. So I'm so glad. I tell you, when I was going through all sorts of hotel quarantine in China, I myself did 153 days hotel quarantine. Wow. Because my family's in the UK, border was shot. So I ended up flying between, right? Yeah.

It was a tough year. Really tough. But I was like sitting in China thinking, I hope you guys survive. I hope that you're not going to be beaten by pandemic. But you survived. We did. Tell us about the challenges that you faced and how did you get over those challenges? And some innovation came out of that period. Yeah, I think...

for a lot of businesses I'm sure that's you have to see that as the silver lining I mean it was a terrible time for everyone globally but luckily we saw some innovation come through for one thing it helped us accelerate our strategy to move into other areas like digital and advisory services and not just being solely reliant on the festival itself

But I'm very proud of the team because in a very short space of time, they took our physical, very physical product and translated it into a digital experience for people for two years running. And in the second year, so that would have been 2021, we managed to run the awards completely remotely, which if you'd asked me before the pandemic whether that was possible, I would have said absolutely not. Yeah.

So, you know, people became very inventive, very creative. It was a great window of opportunity to try things and many of those things have stuck. You know, we still have a digital experience that we run now alongside the festival for accessibility purposes. Right. It was an interesting time. But I think the digital access is a good one because

you're not sure you wanted to invest so much yet. You access through digital and you just

I know it's not in person, but at least you get to know how the festival is run. You can then decide whether the coming year you're going to actually spend the money and come in in person. I personally still prefer in person because of the networking, that's not something you can really do with digital. But I think it's great to, especially to offer people who have never experienced the festival before. Yeah, and I think for a lot of events, they...

They worried about creating a digital experience because they were worried that it would cannibalize the in-person experience. Yeah.

But that's never the case. As you said, in person is king or queen. Yeah. Nothing competes with that, which is why we're so invested in events. Yeah. But what I would say if we use, I'll use a very UK reference, if that's OK. Glastonbury, which is obviously a huge music festival. The coverage of Glastonbury digitally is fantastic.

But it doesn't cannibalize. If anything, it makes you want to attend even more. So that's the way we see digital. But hopefully it's just a shop window to an even fuller experience and even richer experience that you can have if you attend in person. How many people attended in person this year?

Well, there's two parts to that, because you have people who will buy tickets and come into the Palais to learn about creativity. And then you have many, many thousands of people who also come just to experience what we call the festival fringe. Because as you said, there are many experiences that dominate the city now.

It's difficult to quantify. For us, for paid delegates, depending on the year, it can be anything between 10,000 and about 13,000. And then beyond that, it's probably the same again, if not more. So it's a very busy week. It's a very full city during that week. Have you ever asked the city of Canada what's the maximum number of in-person they can actually accommodate?

To be honest, like you said, we're a public company. So quite often that's a question that we get from our investors. Of course. They ask, you know, have you reached, have you maxed out within the city? Is there still room for growth and to accommodate more people? The reason we know that we can is because at its peak, the film festival...

was actually much bigger than we are today. Yeah. And so we know that the city has the infrastructure and the ability to stretch and to grow if it needs to. So... That's a good benchmark. I think we've got a long way off, yeah. Have you...

Has the business, in terms of revenue and also number of attendees and entries, I guess, returned to the pre-pandemic? Yeah, absolutely. And it bounced back much quicker than we thought it would. We thought it would take really quite a long time to get back to pre-pandemic levels again.

But we're there now and in some areas have exceeded that. Which is great to see considering some of the challenges that the business has, the industry has. There's still a great confidence in creativity, which is very reassuring for everyone. Sure. In the last decade or so, the advertising industry has gone through a lot of changes, disruptions or what have you, challenges.

Do you see that also being reflected in the festival attendees or sponsor or what have you, or entries? I think it's a very nuanced question that because if you think about different economies and how they're affected, obviously more recently economies in Brazil,

There have been really challenges there over the past sort of 10 years or so. However, one of our biggest delegations is from Brazil. Wow. So there's no correlation really. I think it depends. You have some cohorts of people that will actually double down and send more people sometimes if they're in a challenging situation. I think because of their confidence.

in creativity and its ability to help them grow over time. So it really depends on which part of the world we're talking about and which part of the industry they're in and also their levels of confidence in creativity and what it can do for business growth. Sure. I think Cannes is the place to come. The festival, I mean, is the place to come if you're in the creativity business. I think it's increasingly the business of creativity that is being focused on.

But a lot of people just see it as their reset moment, I think. You know, it's really a chance to check in with yourself as well about why you entered the industry in the first place. I'm still asking myself that. We all ask ourselves that sometimes on the busiest days, don't we? But it's interesting because it is a check-in moment for a lot of people personally, but also for the industry as well.

We try to make sure that it is a retrospective. I mean, the awards in their nature is about recognition of things that have already happened. But through the content and through the learning programs, we also try to make sure that it's a glimpse into the future as well. So people can do a little bit of now and next in their thinking and start to really think about how they navigate the next 12 months.

71 years of history, you must have a very impressive archive of creativity. And lots of grey hairs. I thought that was just natural colour of your hair. Through the 71 years of so many great cases, there must be, I wouldn't say a formula, but at least there is some learnings that you can extract from those 71 years of history to...

present as a guiding principle to future creativity or future creative talent right are you working with some sort of AI solution to deep dive into those I know I have to mention AI every episode there it is you need a bell or something to ring there you go yeah or

It doesn't have to be AI, but I think the archive itself. I don't think a lot of people know that you can actually pay as a member to access those archives. Yeah, and it's, like you said, it's 70 years worth of work. So until the advancement of AI, it was quite editorially focused for us. So we would, you know, quite manually go through some of these things in order to pull out themes and trends and

often quite data-led because we collect all of that data as well as part of the submission. But through the advancement of technology and AI, ding, ding, ding, that's going to be even easier for us to do. So going back to my original point, our mission, our purpose, it's our hope that we're able to give people the tools and evidence and data that they need to be able to help them be better at their jobs and help them be even more creative every day. Mm-hmm.

Acquisition. Wait, when? Let's drop AI. Your parent company. Yes. Parent company has been acquired. Is that going to affect Ken Lyon or Lyon's future plan or vision? Or it's only going to strengthen what you're trying to do? I think the biggest compliment is

when you are acquired is when the new leadership team tell you that they really like what you do, they buy into you, so I'm still here, thankfully, and they buy into your strategy as well. And I think if you have a very clear strategy and it's compelling and they can see that it's worked over time, as you said, we've been running for 70 years and we're growing it in a healthy way, it's exciting, it's an opportunity because they're a much bigger company with more resources,

more connections, more complementary businesses.

So we're looking forward to what that partnership is going to look like because for the most part I think it's crack on with what we're doing. Oh really? So first of all you're still being left alone I guess by the new parent company. Exactly. And what sort of resource that you as Global CEO Alliance will be expecting from your new parent or parents of the parent? Yeah I think because they're a much bigger company

with offices all over the world. It's going to be about connections and reach. They may have a stronger relationship in some markets than we do. So I think to begin with, it's going to be a few months of, like with any acquisition, discovery, like really working out where we can help them. They obviously have a lot of events.

And that's something we believe we do fairly well. Yeah. And vice versa. So really understanding how we can get the best resources possible to be able to complement what we're trying to do. So it'll be an interesting journey, but it's an exciting one. China has a much longer, I guess, pandemic measures. Yeah, because all sorts of reasons.

For creators and creativity industry in China, it would have taken us a very temporary pause going to a lot of festivals, including Ken Lyons. What would you like to see, of course, more coming from China, coming back to Ken Lyons, but what more that you would like to see coming out of China?

I would really like to see more of the work being celebrated on our global stage. And I think that's about defining a more intentional partnership between the festival and with the Chinese market. So we're always really keen to understand how can we help to make that happen? And also, how can we make the festival more accessible?

so that people from that market feel like they can come and have the experience that they would expect to have. And I think that's an ongoing conversation, but it would be fantastic, wouldn't it, to see more Chinese winners up on stage celebrating the very best work from the region. And also innovators, because if you look at the younger generation of the innovators or the entrepreneurial,

I guess decades ago, it was more of a taking Western model as a reference, replicating China. But now they're actually taking Chinese model going global like TikTok, TenMu, you know, XIYIN. So they're actually originated out of China, innovated out of China, and then taking that innovation elsewhere in the world. And it went down well. So there are more and more innovators coming out of China.

But some of them are so young, they didn't necessarily come from the ads industry. So they don't necessarily know Ken Lyons of International Festival of Creativity. They probably still carry with them the myth that this is, or not myth, but misunderstanding that this is only for ads industry. Exactly. Yeah.

So what more would you be doing in China to let more people know that you're not just for ad men and ad women? Well, things like this. Well, I initiated this. I think spending more time there. I think really understanding what the needs are. And as you said, more than a few years ago, it may have been that delegations were coming to the festival to learn.

I think it's flipping that. It's really encouraging the Chinese market to come to teach as well. Because as you said, there is a lot of innovation coming from that market that the rest of the world really want to hear about. So I think it's just across the board building a stronger relationship and making clear what the opportunities are. Because as you said, there is that myth that we are perhaps just still for the ad men and women of the world. Yes.

So finally, do you have any exciting up and coming announcement that you would like to make to our listeners or any new or new scheme that you would like to put in place to encourage more participation from the Chinese creativity community? It's probably a bit too early to say, unfortunately, but you'll be the first to know, Bessie. Excellent.

But what I would say is that, you know, part of the success of Lions over the past 70 years, and look, it's certainly not all my doing. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants who have come before me, is evolution. So really, going back to your point on innovation,

constantly just assessing the rapidly changing market and it is rapid the worst thing for can lions in the future or for lions would be to become complacent or stand still

And so every year, as you know, that's why we make an effort to retire things or collapse things that are no longer relevant, but also make sure that we are serving an increasingly large market with the products and services that they need. Okay. Would FE be playing a part of that? They will. Yes. I can't say exactly how at the moment, but...

Part of the relationship with Effie is that we're bringing the biggest powerhouse in effectiveness globally together with its counterpart being Lions. And so finding new ways to partner in order to provide our global audience with even more tools and data and the stuff that they need to make the case for creativity will be front and center at the festival next year. Great.

Well, thank you so much for coming on to my show. I really enjoyed the chat. Thanks for having me. I finally hear it from the first person about the history and how it started, the vision and the challenges that you went through and really admire that you and the team have

have done a lot to really make sure that you survive not just survive you outshine thank you very much from that pandemic period but all credit to the team they're a fantastic team and i think your sharing has so much for the festival organizers in china to to learn from to take reference because it's still when it comes to festival or creativity it's still a very young market

And there are festivals there. They have aspiration as well to be around for a long time. And I think the Ken Lyons experience is very valuable for them to learn from. Thank you very much. So much for sharing. Thank you, Simon. Bye. Bye-bye.