Cannes Lions has launched a digital Masterbrand called ‘Lions’ in a bid to champion creativity as the brand aims to expand its International Festival of Creativity into a year-long platform.

Lions is a platform which features the four pillars of the Cannes Lions product portfolio: community, intelligence, learning and bench-marking.

“The creation of Lions is a very natural evolution of our business that brings our portfolio of services onto a single platform. Our aim is to provide those in the business of creativity with access to the insight and support they’ve asked for to enable them to drive progress through creativity, every day.” – The Home of Creativity.

As part of the launch,five marketing and creative moguls across four continents –  Chaka Sobhani, chief creative officer of Leo Burnett; Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO India; Tea Uglow, creative director of Google’s Creative Lab in Sydney; PJ Pereira, creative chairman and co-founder of Pereira O’Dell; and Yang Yeo, chief creative officer at Hakuhodo International in Singapore – have narrated a series of videos encouraging members to champion creativity.

The videos will be streamed throughout Lions Live and available to watch on the Lions YouTube channel.

Simon Cook, Managing director of Lions, explained saying “We know that there are some people who will never get to experience the Festival but now anyone, anywhere can engage with and benefit from world-class experts discussing the work that sets the bar. Cannes Lions offers a podium, but Lions Live is about getting under the hood; both inspiration and application.”

Chairman of Lions, Philip Thomas,said: “This change brings together the disparate parts of what Lions has been offering for some time, whether that’s our consultancy services for brands who want to improve the creativity and effectiveness of their marketing, the bench-marking of the Global Creativity Report,the inspiration and celebration of the festivals we run, our year-round training courses, or the rich digital resource of the work.

“We know how powerful creativity can be, and the Lions platform is designed to equip our community with the support, tools and insights to better understand, and adopt,transformational creativity.”

As with other events,this year’s edition was cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak. International Festival of Creativity is still set to take place next year and virtual passes will be available to members unable to travel to the event. About 80,000 people from 145 countries have registered to be a part of the Lions Live community.