Ascential, the media and events company behind Cannes Lions, has entered into an agreement to acquire the commercial assets of Effie, the global benchmark in marketing effectiveness.
Pending regulatory approval, Effie will join Ascential’s LIONS Division, bringing with it more than 55 global, regional, and national Effie Awards programs, covering over 125 markets.
In acquiring Effie, Ascential also plans to undertake a long-term partnership with its not-for-profit arm, Effie Worldwide, which provides research and resources on effective marketing strategy. Moving forward, the organization will become The Effie LIONS Foundation and will focus on educating the next generation of talent, offering training for all marketing students, particularly those underrepresented in the marketing community. The Foundation will also provide a home for LIONS’ existing not-for-profit initiatives and access to some of the LIONS Division’s digital products.
Philip Thomas, CEO of Ascential, commented: “The coming together of LIONS and Effie is a powerful testament to the fact that effectiveness and creativity in marketing are inextricably linked. All enlightened businesses know that creative, effective marketing drives growth. This historic partnership will complement the insights and intelligence on marketing and creative effectiveness that LIONS already offers via WARC, The Work, and Contagious, providing marketing leaders worldwide with the data and evidence they need to make the case for creative marketing that matters. Meanwhile, the creation of The Effie LIONS Foundation, Inc. will educate and inspire our industry and broaden the opportunities available to everyone to build a career in creativity and marketing.”
Traci Alford, President and CEO of Effie Worldwide, commented: “We are excited to join LIONS with such a complementary, yet distinct, portfolio of brands. Closer collaboration between Effie, as the definitive marketing effectiveness benchmark globally, and the LIONS brands is an exciting prospect for the industry. Our ability to share insights and find synergies in our data will help to dissect the role creativity plays in driving marketing effectiveness overall. Together we will be able to better understand the key drivers of growth and ultimately help all businesses succeed.”
Headquartered in New York, with offices in Beijing and the UK, Effie has a network of 59 partners covering over 125 markets. Effie will continue to be led by Traci Alford, President and CEO of EffieWorldwide.
As the official representative of Cannes Lions in the UAE, Motivate Val Morgan warmly welcomes this exciting new partnership.
Source: Cannes Lions Press Release
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has confirmed that it will return to Cannes, France, from 20-24 June 2022.
Philip Thomas, Chairman, LIONS, said, “We can’t wait to reunite the industry and bring the community together once again. For over 67 years, Cannes Lions has served as a convening force for the global creative community. As the world continues to shift and change we know that our role as conveners needs to evolve. Building Cannes Lions as a hybrid Festival will allow us to continue to reach our expanded creative community who we have welcomed through our digital initiatives over the last 18 months. It provides us with an opportunity to democratise, innovate and reinvent the Festival for the future.”
Plans for the Festival, which will build on LIONS Membership, the subscription-based, digital offering launched in March 2020, and which now has more than 10,000 members, are being developed to offer the global community even more flexibility and easier access to the home of creativity.
Simon Cook, Managing Director, LIONS, said, “We are putting the foundations in place to build a purposeful Festival that allows our community to come together in a meaningful way. Through highly curated content, community networking opportunities and agenda setting initiatives Cannes Lions will provide an annual forum for the global industry to address the most pressing issues the industry and world are facing today. In doing this, sustainability is top of mind for us – as it is for the industry – and we’ve committed to putting a sustainability agenda in place. Together with a number of partners, we are striving to deliver our most sustainable Festival in history.”
In early November 2021, LIONS opened its annual State of Creativity Study Designed to uncover the industry’s attitudes and approaches towards creativity, and paint an accurate picture of what will impact the creative economy tomorrow. The results of the study will form the LIONS 2022 editorial agenda across all of its platforms and events. Cannes Lions will open its call for content in January.
Speaking about the 2022 Cannes Lions juries, Susie Walker, VP, Awards & Insight, said, “Returning the Festival to Cannes means that we can once again bring our jurors together in person. Our unique judging technology allows us to carry out the initial judging stages remotely, but we’re delighted to be bringing the jurors back to Cannes to complete the final stages and award the Lions – as they have done since 1954. We can’t wait to hear the discussions and insights as our juries deep-dive into the work and set the global benchmark in creative excellence.”
Over the last 18 months, Cannes Lions, together with owners Ascential, has developed a health and safety standard that delivers industry best practice at live events. The Festival will adhere to the latest health guidelines leading up to and at the event. Cannes Lions will open for entries and registrations on 20 January 2022.
The LIONS Membership platform is the year-round home of creativity. For access to exclusive content, resources, training and networking find out more here.
WARC recently launched a new white paper ‘Anatomy of Effectiveness’ at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2019
The white paper for brand marketers and advertising agencies alike, highlights five key priorities for brands seeking greater impact:
The report highlights that every element involves trade-offs and hard decisions on where to invest, and that insights and creative thinking are required to bring it all to life. But, it’s here that brands will drive better customer engagement.
It also looks at what is changing in a fast-moving industry, featuring expert comment from the likes of Les Binet, Peter Field and Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.
A key takeaways from the section ‘Plan for reach’; which Motivate Val Morgan continues to emphasize when in talks with clients, is the fact that multi-channel integrated campaigns are more effective than single-channel campaigns, particularly when they work together to increase reach.
One way to go about this would be to have longer-form ads in quality media placements such as cinema to build brand awareness, while shorter-form ads online and on TV for activations and promotions.
As per the white paper by WARC, a 2016 study conducted for the Advertising Research Foundation found that investing in cross-platform campaigns delivers a significantly higher ROI. Specifically, going from one platform to two increases marketing ROI by 19%.
Click here to download the white paper and learn how your brand could increase marketing effectiveness.
With an amazing line-up of blockbusters ahead: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (August), Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (August), Mission Mangal (August), Saaho (August), IT Chapter Two (September), Rambo: Last Blood (September), The Joker (October), Gemini Man (October), Terminator: Dark Fate (October), War (October), Doctor Sleep (November), Frozen 2 (November), Jumanji: The Next Level (December); Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (December), Bramastra (December), Dabangg 3 (December) and much more, contact us to make cinema an integral part of your media plan.
Sources: WARC and Cannes Lions
