Amy Weston.
Amy Weston, executive creative director, Clemenger BBDO
Nearly 15 years ago, I came to Cannes as part of the Young Lions Creative Academy. I had the chance to learn from people like Sir John Hegarty and Bob Isherwood, which felt like peeking behind the curtain of the industry. But outside those sessions, I still felt like the intern. Not invited to the parties or yachts, most of Cannes existing behind a collection of wristbands I didn’t have. At least you could still see the beach back then, though.
It felt surreal to be back in the same place and walking into the Cannes Lions Brand Experience & Activation jury room this year. Before judging began, Lisa Berlin and Simon Cook described it as both a huge honour and a huge commitment. I believed the first part. I drastically underestimated the second.
Our jury reviewed almost 2,000 entries in the weeks leading up to the festival. I got through close to 500 case studies in every spare gap around work and family, finishing final scores at 11.59pm on deadline day with my sick daughter asleep on my lap. Two days later, I landed in France feeling like I'd been studying for an exam. I knew the work, the tropes and trends, the recurring brands, and where I wanted to fight.
And then the judging started. People often imagine juries are looking for reasons to eliminate ideas. My experience was almost the opposite. We wanted the work to win.
It wasn’t really about whether work was good. Most of it was. The question was what awarding it would say about where the category goes next. Less “is this right?” and more “do we want more of this?”
Does the interaction belong to the brand, or could any brand have done it? That question quietly replaced most others. If the answer was yes, the work struggled. If it felt inseparable, it moved forward. Because in this category, it’s not enough that people feel something. They have to do something, and that action has to clearly belong to the brand.
Rafael Pitanguy, our Jury President, was very good at something that’s harder than it looks. He didn’t steer the conversation towards agreement. He kept pulling it back to the work itself when the room drifted into opinion. It kept things honest without flattening disagreement.
At one point, we realised we’d moved past a piece of work without properly hearing one of the quieter voices in the room. We stopped, went back, and voted again. The outcome changed.
Another time, a piece stalled on a detail in the supporting material. Rather than forcing a position, we asked for clarification. Not to save it, just to understand it properly. That answer changed the result too.
Only once that rhythm settled did the category itself start to make sense. Brand Experience & Activation is probably the broadest category at Cannes. Everything is made for a brand and almost everything creates some kind of experience, which means it can become a home for work that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere.
But our Grand Prix, Expedition Impossible, created by Adam&eveDDB London for Columbia Sportswear, wasn’t in this category by default, it was there to define it.
Brand Experience & Activation started its life as Promo & Activations. This work changes what a promotion could be. An unwinnable competition for an audience outside their obvious target somehow became the clearest expression of the brand. Every part of the idea reinforced Columbia Sportswear’s belief in exploration. Then it kept going. Writing, design, detail, all beautifully crafted. Nothing felt left half-solved.
And it was timely rather than timeless. Awards are snapshots. Years from now, I want to look back at the 2026 winners and remember what was happening in the world, what people cared about, and how brands responded to it.
One thing that stood out was how little AI came up in the actual judging.
Outside the room, it was everywhere. On stage, in panels, in almost every conversation about the future of the industry. AI as collaborator, AI as enhancer, AI as default assumption. Inside the room, it barely appeared.
Not because it was rejected, just because it wasn’t what we were deciding on. We were looking at ideas, interaction, outcomes. What people actually did. That gap feels temporary. AI will become less of a subject and more something assumed rather than discussed.
It will always be about bringing people together.
In our room, ten strangers from different parts of the world became comfortable challenging work and supporting each other almost instantly. We disagreed, changed our minds, backed opinions we hadn’t held an hour earlier.
We all know we’re talking about advertising. But for three days, it felt oddly important.
We’re already talking about a reunion.
So, if anyone reading this happens to organise a wonderfully obscure award show somewhere in the world and needs ten experienced jurors, I seem to have built a fairly strong international contact list.
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