
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has named 327 jury members for 2014, eight more than last year, not to mention 24 judges for the new two-day health-care contest before the main festival. But despite the growing numbers, it’s still tough to get a jury seat.
Cannes Lions CEO Philip Thomas performs a delicate balancing act every year to make sure all holding companies, networks and agencies are fairly represented. This year, he’s also prioritizing the addition of more women and new countries to the mix. Complicating the process is the prerequisite that jury candidates should be prior Lion winners, an incentive for creatives to enter the festival.
Because Cannes decides how many judges a country gets based largely on how many entries the country’s agencies send, it also has “wild card” judges selected from countries with fewer entries. To broaden the geographical spread of jurors, the number of wild cards has been increased to three this year from two, with Guatemala, Uruguay and Hungary getting slots. Peru, a wild card in 2013, sent more entries than last, therefore it earned a judging spot on its own.
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