In some respects, the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity represented a return to business as usual, as the advertising world gathered en masse in the south of France for the first time since 2019. But despite the glitzy location and celebration of the best creativity from the past year, the same issues that have consumed the community, and the world in general, dominated much of the conversation, including anxiety over everything from the war in Ukraine and climate change to sustainability and a possible economic downturn.
Two years since the police murder of George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests and subsequent renewed calls for greater diversity, equity and inclusion, the importance of DE&I and its relative baby steps forward in the ad industry was also a major topic of discussion. The talks ranged widely, from Group Black's Inkwell Beach to IBM and WPP's panel on how AI can fix bias in data to The Female Quotient's Equality Lounge to Meta Beach.