Shining a light on key industry themes at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2024

Shining a light on key industry themes at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2024

Jul 05, 2024 | 5 minute read

Philips made a significant impact at this year's prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (June 17 - 21), the ultimate meeting of minds for global advertising, marketing and communications industry professionals.

In addition to taking home the Cannes Lions Grand Prix award in the Creative Business Transformation category for our game-changing "Better than New" campaign, key Philips thought leaders shared insights and actions to spur positive and responsible change across the creative and consumer industries.

Through thought-provoking panel discussions, Philips was at the forefront of important conversations throughout the captivating five-day event, most notably around the responsible use of AI, reimagining retail, the power of leading from the front through consumer insights, the case for inclusive design, and empowering the industry to 'Share the Care' with parents. Here's a recap of key highlights for Philips for the week-that-was at Cannes Lions 2024.

Responsible use of AI

With AI the clear, dominant theme at this year's festival, Claudia Calori, Head of Marketing Excellence, Philips Personal Health, joined marketing conglomerate Omnicom's dynamic Navigating new frontiers: AI-driven insights in agile marketing panel discussion, alongside other notable industry speakers. With Philips Marketing a global leader for complex, multimarket marketing and AI an innate part of Philips' core, we use the advantages of generative AI responsibly without losing sight of care for the consumer. In her discussions, Claudia highlighted how, as a health-tech company with a central mission to enable positive self-care behaviors through personalized technology and solutions, Philips has been combining the power of AI with our clinical knowledge responsibly for years, such as through our power toothbrushes that adapt to users' individual brushing pressure. When it comes to applying AI to our consumer marketing, we remain focused on securing international cohesion with local relevance at speed and with quality, with Claudia calling on the industry to learn, question, collaborate and make sure it doesn't overlook human intelligence and empathy as it expands how it uses AI.

Reimagining retail

Turning to the world of retail, Marlies Gebetsberger, Senior Vice President, Head of Philips Personal Health Western Europe, joined Omnicom panel discussion, Reimagining Retail: Transforming the Physical Store, which delved into how integrating digital components such as AI, augmented reality (AR) and media into physical retail is gaining momentum. To showcase how Philips, as a direct-to-consumer business, is working with offline retailers to try and test new ways to connect with consumers, Marlies spotlighted Philips' collaboration with Boots, the UK's leading health and beauty retailer, on a digital out-of-home for Philips One Blade. Through the campaign, consumers could try new beard styles virtually. Philips then leveraged data points to send consumers to the nearest Boots store to buy a One Blade, continuing their integrated retail journey offline. The discussion closed with a forward-thinking use case around waste reduction; Marlies hopes the process of directly connecting business demand plans with a retailer's inventory to drive end-to-end flow and reduce overall inventory - a process Philips is already using - will become the industry standard.

Leading from the front with consumer insights

The power of consumer data and insights in transforming brand building was another Cannes Lions' hot topic. With Philips inspiring positive selfcare behaviours to improve people's health and wellbeing - meaning everything we do starts with people - Fenny Leautier-ten Brinke, Head of Consumer Insights, Philips Personal Health, joined an engaging panel discussion on the Power of Insights to Foster Creativity, hosted by ESOMAR. Sharing learnings from Philips Avent's new global Share the Care brand positioning, launched in March, Fenny underlined why brands must "bring the needs of real people in their real lives to the forefront" to ignite brand building. In developing the campaign, Philips Avent used insights led from the front, uncovering a global truth that moms self-sacrifice their wellbeing and needs to take care of their babies, using the insights to understand cultural differences and local nuances, taking it from a global brand positioning to one recognised in local countries. As Fenny shared, leading from the front to ignite global brand building requires "being brave, intentional and inspirational."

The case for inclusive design

Nina Warburton, Head of Design Excellence, Philips Personal Health, joined Mastercard's panel discussion, The Case for Inclusive Design, spotlighting how, by prioritising inclusivity, brands can tap into diverse markets and showcase their commitment to accessibility and attract a wider customer base. Alongside other esteemed marketing leaders, Nina delved into the tensions of inclusive design, drawing on how Philips has tackled global differences and focused on inclusivity through our Share the Care creative asset development, by showing women 'as they are'; by carefully considering the decision to show body hair in our Lumea creative content, such as adapting creative outputs in Middle Eastern countries to be respectful to all cultures; and by continuously working to balance the needs for greater inclusivity in all design content with the aim of reaching broader audiences, underpinned by the principle: "I see myself there".

Empowering the industry to Share the Care

As part of Cannes Lions' Empower Café - a woman-centric, inclusive hub for attendees and participants - Philips hosted the panel discussion The Reality of Sharing the Care: Catalysing support for parents across the creative industry, discussing the realities of working parents in the high-paced and often demanding creative, advertising and related industries. Building on Philips Avent's Share the Care global brand positioning, which highlights Philips own research that three-quarters of moms (74%) believe societal pressures and expectations on them have increased in the past 10 years, the panel discussion called on senior leaders and executives to acknowledge the challenges working parents face and create more systemic changes to provide real support. To provoke active change, our panel of experts, including leading industry voices such as Marci El-Deiry, Global Business Unit Leader, Philips Mother and Child Care, Frank Starling, Chief DEI Officer, Cannes Lions, Chloe Davies, It Takes A Village Collective founder and Sandrine Le Goff, Executive Creative Director, LePub, called on the industry to commit to four principles to better support working parents:

• Leading with empathy: an acknowledgment from colleagues and senior leaders that no parenting journey is the same, actively signposting and offering support to working parents.
  
  
• Reviewing existing benefits: to work with parents to review existing benefits packages and policies to ensure they provide the support needed for parents in the industry.
  
  
• Creating safe spaces: to create safe spaces and forums for working parents to share and feel part of a 'village'. To include working parents as part of DEI and not just HR to address intersectionality.
  
  
• Mentorship: to create a support system for working moms, to learn and be guided from senior colleagues in the industry.

Philips is proud to be shaping these important industry narratives and contributing to key thought leadership in the marketing space, particularly on the overarching themes of AI, diversity and inclusion, consumer centricity, retail and brands with purpose - both at Cannes Lions 2024 and beyond.

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