The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity award entries for 2023 will have new requirements to address the impact work has on growth and the environment as well as disclosures about the diversity of teams creating the work, Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook said Wednesday at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference in Orlando.

Cannes will also address continued criticism about the diversity of its juries, Cook said, promising to “evolve our jury selection process and our criteria to ensure that our juries fully reflect society, rather than the industry.” 
 

He did not provide specific targets for jury composition or for the new judging criteria, but Cook did express confidence that the changes can make an impact. “We’re in a position to be able to provide the platform to set the industry agenda,” Cook said.

The initiatives are an outgrowth of input from closed-door meetings starting last year at Cannes with the ANA’s CMO Growth Council and other groups, Cook said. And they spring from the belief that Cannes can change the industry by changing how awards get dished out—pointing to the results of Madonna Badger’s efforts in 2017 to bar ads that objectify or stereotype women from receiving awards. 

The new guidelines go beyond efforts such as creating the Glass Lions and Sustainable Development Lions to apply criteria used in those categories to all award entries.

“From 2023, with the help of the global councils, Lions will take things a step further by encouraging all submissions to demonstrate progress across three critical areas,” Cook said. 

Regardless of category, all entries will be asked to demonstrate impact on growth and sustainability, he said. On the latter, that means entrants will be asked to provide information on CO2 emissions from the work’s production process, using tools like those provided by the industry Ad Net Zero group that was formed last year at Cannes, Cook said

“All of our entrants will be asked to provide information that outlines the DEI agenda and composition of the teams behind the camera,” he said.