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Experiential Learning

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

Often dubbed as the ‘Olympics of Creativity’, the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the largest gathering in the creative marketing community. Over a week in the French city of Cannes, students learn from leaders in creative communication, legacy brand owners and renowned personalities, while immersing in experiential marketing and networking with media and creative professionals.

Past Happenings

Discover more below!

About CS4070 Issues in Advertising (Cannes)

The course, CS4070 Issues In Advertising, aims to elevate the students’ understanding of creativity in communications and how it can enhance advertising and public relations campaigns. To this end, students work on advertising brief challenges for their assignments such as the D&AD New Blood Awards and AKQA Young Lions Competition. The course features creatives, directors and strategists from distinguished agencies giving exclusive workshops to critique and enhance the students’ work which also helps to deepen their industry knowledge and broaden their network.

 

 

 

 

Insights Report

 

Please complete this form to download the Cannes Lion 2022 Trend Report (pdf).

 

Download the Cannes Lions Ebook here!

Awarded and Shortlisted Works

The D&AD New Blood Awards serve as benchmarks for creative excellence in design and advertising for students, graduates, and aspiring creatives. Participants select from a variety of client briefs with different challenges and have to apply creative thinking skills to come up with a solution. 

The winning team from WKWSCI, Can’t Relate, Come Debate! consisting of Lim Yi Hui, Cheong Kai Xin and Darryl Cheong, selected the brief from Top Trumps, the UK’s #1 card game. Their challenge was to help it become the new status symbol for 18-25 year olds. To do this, the team leaned into Gen Z’s interests in sharing quirky opinions and used it to elevate Top Trumps into a symbol of their uniqueness. 

For their work, they were awarded the prestigious Yellow Pencil, the only one for the Top Trumps brief.


Future Lions celebrates the power of bold ideas from students to connect a brand to audiences in new ways. Submissions are shortlisted and from them five winners selected which are awarded on stage every year at Cannes. 

Unlike the D&AD New Blood Awards, there is only one brief for all and this year it was for Gymshark who wanted to empower people to overcome their barriers to conditioning. From WKWSCI, two teams were shortlisted and one team won a spot in the Top 5. 

The winning team, Shark Waves, consisting of Athena Tan Jiaxin, Keith Samson and Seth Low, tapped on wearable technology to help members of the deaf community experience the thrill of working out with music by translating the audio experience into physical sensations.   


The shortlisted team, Shark Sense, consisting of Philip Ong, Tang Yi Ting and Lim See Mun, harnessed visual AI through the use of a camera-equipped necklace to help the visually impaired use the gym by describing the machines in the environment and how to use them.

 

Discover the Festival



Find out more about the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity here!

Reflections from the Festival

Hear from our students as they reflect on their Cannes journey:  LinkedIn Reflections

Testimonials

As an aspiring creative, having the opportunity to visit the one and only Cannes Lions Festival is not a testament to how brilliant I am now, but how far I can go if I continue honing my creativity. Numerous giants you’ll encounter there will grant you the impression that there’s still so much to discover, and that’s something you can only feel when you’re physically there to experience it all in person.

Darryl Cheong, Class of 2022

Listening to the likes of Alma and PepsiCo for their award winning “Better with Pepsi” campaign, as well as discovering new groundbreaking campaigns such as Morning After Island and The Lost Class from the Award show has been nothing short of surreal.

As a student from the tiny red dot, listening to podcasts, watching case films and stalking creatives' portfolios online can’t beat the experience of living in this moment in Cannes right here, right now.

Nicole Lim, Class of 2022

My favourite part of the festival was going to the basement to browse through the shortlisted works, then attending the award shows at night. It was exciting, even surreal, to witness the works that I rooted for to be recognised and awarded. Thinking about the trends of the industry, what makes the works that won different from the others – everywhere, there was so much to learn and be inspired by.

Lim Yi Hui, Class of 2022

I was starstruck by the works that I saw. Some gave me chills, others almost made me cry. They had created a real impact on society, which started from a genuine human truth. I leave the Home of Creativity inspired that ‘creativity’ is not just a buzzword.

Kai Emmanuel Kuah, Class of 2024

A talk that everyone should view is ‘The Rise of Hackertising’ by Burger King. The speakers were passionate and eloquent and it made for a very engaging talk. Many important issues were discussed including client-agency relations, the importance of being relevant and brands doing good.

Lee Pei Shan, Class of 2019

Related: Experiential Learning