Hasta La Creative!

Are you into innovation? You should be. If you are, you might enjoy Innovation Day are Cannes Lions this year.

Innovation Day, taking place Saturday, June 21, will focus on innovation and will offer a series of sessions given by speakers from a variety of backgrounds. Contagious will kick off the day with an exploration into true innovation, followed by Intel’s Kevin Sellers and Genevieve Bell who will explore the links between maker culture and the latest development projects from the technology giant.

Composer Philip Sheppard will take to the stage and use state of the art technology to spontaneously compose music alongside TED speaker and human cyborg (seriously) Neil Harbisson who will showcase the unique antenna which enables him to hear in color.

Further seminars will come from Adweek’s Jim Cooper who engages with Lori Senecal of kbs+ and Winston Binch, Co-Founder of Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado; MDC Partners CEO Miles Nadal who interviews Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, examining the way in which creativity is being leveraged in the C-suite of today’s most innovative companies; Mike Bennett, Darren Savage and Michael Lee of creative agency VCCP who will discuss emotional measurement technologies; and Chris Clarke and Lorenzo Wood of DigitasLBi who will look at innovation culture and some of the projects that never quite made it, in their seminar titled ‘Tales from the Accident Factory’.

During Innovation Day, delegates will hear about a chance to win a trip to space. The video advertising platform Virool, will be offering a seat on a Virgin Galactic rocket for a space flight in 2015. Details of the competition and how to enter to win will be revealed on stage by Virool.

Speaking about Innovation Day, Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions. “Cannes Lions brings together the global creative communications industry, once a year, to the South of France. What this means is that it is a hotbed of innovation, new thinking and pioneering technology. The industry needs to continually drive forward to stay at the top of their game and by providing innovation and technology focused content, delegates can leave the Festival better equipped and brimming with inventive ideas.”

In addition, the revamped TechTalks will feature interactive demonstrations, research and new platforms. Taking place across five days, each day will be themed with its own topic: Mobile Tech; Publishing Tech; Data Tech; Video Tech; and Interactive Tech. Taking to the stage will be industry leaders from BrightRoll, Unruly, Civolution, and AppSavvy, as well as Maryse Liburdi, Founder of Pokeware and Scott Knoll, CEO of Integral Ad Science.

Speaking about his TechTalk, Scott Button, Co-Founder and CEO at Unruly says, “Cannes is advertising’s moment in the sun, a chance to celebrate the creativity that exists in our industry and the science behind successful ads. I’m really looking forward to lifting the lid on why some of the best Cannes ads of all time got watched, tracked and shared across the Open Web. In a memes meets maths session, we’ll be using our unique data set of 430 billion video views and proprietary technology to unveil how advertisers can have repeatable social video success 365 days of the year.”

The theme of innovation continues throughout the Festival, particularly through the Innovation Lions which are now in their second year. This awards category, sponsored by Intel, honors the technology and innovation which lead to the creativity. Unlike other categories at Cannes Lions, delegates are invited to watch the live judging and shortlisted presentations which take place on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 June during the Festival. The Innovation Lions Awards take place on Saturday, June 21.

Cannes Lions takes place from 15-21 June in Cannes, France.