Changes for Cannes Lions 2027

The Creative B2B Lion has been reconfigured to better reflect the realities of B2B buying dynamics. The refined Award definition places greater emphasis on creativity that improves buyability, builds preference, drives consensus and delivers measurable business outcomes.

The Award has been restructured to clarify the distinct commercial models that shape how companies create, market and deliver value. This restructure includes an extended eligibility window and updated definitions across the Award’s sub-categories.

These changes better accommodate extended processes and decision cycles and large-scale enterprise organisations.

In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, brands are placing greater emphasis on live, immersive and participatory experiences. To reflect this shift, we’ve evolved the Brand Experience & Activation Lion into the Experiential Lion.

This repositioning expands the focus towards experiential creativity in its broadest sense, recognising work that creates worlds and moments that are shaped by audiences. The restructure includes updates to section titles and definitions to align more closely with the industry landscape and ensure the work is judged through the appropriate lens. It also introduces dedicated recognition for experience design and production craft, as well as updated judging criteria.

Luxury demands a distinct balance of creativity, innovation, craftsmanship and commercial impact. The Luxury Lion definition has been updated to better acknowledge this. It recognises luxury brands that create value beyond traditional advertising, through editorial credibility, cultural influence and high-touch client relationships.

This refresh also introduces new sub-categories designed to better reflect the sector's nuances.

• Clienteling & VIP Experiences NEW
  Bespoke, high-touch programmes designed to surprise and retain high-value clients. This includes but is not limited to private previews, atelier services, concierge and after-sales rituals, personalised gifting and invitation-only experiences.

• Celebrity & Cultural Influence NEW
  Recognising creative use of celebrity and cultural moments as strategic media. The work should demonstrate how it orchestrated narrative, PR and social architecture before, during and after the moment.

• Creator Partnership NEW
  Luxury brands partnering with creators to communicate craftsmanship, heritage, and exclusivity through authentic, high-quality content.

• Luxury PR & Editorial Partnerships NEW
  Recognising earned influence in luxury through editorial craft. This includes but is not limited to magazine photo or video editorials, publisher co-created franchises and cultural media tie-ins.

For its second year, the Creative Brand Lion has been refined to more clearly recognise the internal creative capabilities that enable brands to produce exceptional creative work and enduring business success.

Across the Award definition and subcategory descriptions, the updates place greater emphasis on the systems, culture and ways of working that make creative excellence repeatable across an organisation. The revised subcategory descriptions sharpen this focus, while the introduction of a new Small to Medium-Sized Business (SMB) subcategory recognises smaller organisations that achieve disproportionate impact through ingenuity, agility and creative resourcefulness.

The rules have also been updated to permit brands to submit the same initiative in consecutive years to reflect the reality that capability building is a long-term cumulative discipline. In addition, entrants can now provide an information deck with further details and still visual examples of the creative output. Together, these changes reinforce that creative excellence is not a one-off achievement, but something organisations build and strengthen over time.

The Social & Creator Lion has been updated to centre social-first ideas that show how platform behaviours and mechanics shape both the idea and the outcomes.

Clearer definitions elevate creator-led collaborations and community craft. A new definition for ‘Creator’ as ‘an individual whose influence is built through original content on social platforms’ helps distinguish between celebrity-led work and authentic creator partnerships.

Across the sub-categories, the updates draw a clearer distinction between meaningful real-time participation and standard reactive activity. They place greater emphasis on culturally aware community engagement and social-native storytelling. In doing so, they recognise work that is truly made for social. Together, these changes strengthen the framework for celebrating work that drives cultural impact, audience connection and commercial success.

Following the introduction of the Integrity Measures last year, a series of updates have been introduced to make the entry and approval journey clearer, more efficient and easier to manage.

These changes include expanded criteria, additional resources and greater clarity around Proof of Impact requirements. New system functionality also permits users to input this information once and clone across other entries within a campaign.

For Authorisation to Submit, the process has been refined, and workflows reconfigured to ensure that senior executives have a dedicated approval window between 1 and 11 June.

• The Entertainment Lion has been updated to include two new subcategories. Original Entertainment IP to recognise entertainment properties that grow fans and Food & Culinary Entertainment to reward food and dining experiences designed to spark and cultural participation.

• The PR Lion has a new subcategory Creative Use of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), introduced to reflect the growing focus on work that build visibility.