How will Cannes be different this year amid greater awards scrutiny?

About this episode

The episode discusses the changes to the Cannes Lions awards process amid increased scrutiny and integrity standards following past controversies.

In 2025, Cannes Lions was dampened by controversy after three awards were withdrawn over fabrication of case studies and concerns around their legitimacy. DM9’s “Efficient way to pay” was retracted after the DDB agency was caught using AI to fabricate news coverage and misleading the jury. Two others Lions were also removed from the agency. In response, Cannes Lions updated the entry process and introduced a set of "integrity standards" to ban agencies for up to three years that submit "wilfully false" campaigns. Campaign's UK editor Maisie McCabe recently spoke to Cannes Lions on the new awards process and "necessary" reset to the standards. In this episode, Campaign's editorial team discuss how the awards will be different this year, both for those that have entered and the juries that are judging them, and what the industry makes of the changes. Plus, the team reveal how the Cannes Lions is making efforts to reduce bias in the judging rooms. Hosted by tech and multimedia editor Lucy Shelley, this episode includes McCabe, creativity and culture editor Gurjit Degun and reporter Eszter Gurbicz. It was edited by Haymarket's producer Inga Marsden. Further reading: Cannes Lions…

People in this episode

Host: Lucy Shelley

Guests: Maisie McCabe, Gurjit Degun, Eszter Gurbicz

Topics covered

• Cannes Lions
• awards scrutiny
• integrity standards
• judging process
• industry changes

Keywords

• Cannes Lions
• awards
• integrity standards
• judging
• marketing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cannes Lions, DM9, DDB, Haymarket

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