Reimagining Cannes Lions during a global crisis

Overview

Cannes Lions has been championing creative excellence since 1954, bringing together the global creative community through one of the industry's most recognised annual events.

For decades, the festival relied on a physical experience that connected delegates, brands, agencies, speakers, and award winners from around the world.

When COVID-19 brought global travel and large-scale events to a halt, Cannes Lions faced an unprecedented challenge.

For the first time in its history, the festival was cancelled.

As part of a cross-functional leadership team, I helped lead the creation of a new digital platform designed to preserve the community, protect the business, and establish a new future for digital events.

What began as a crisis response became a business-critical transformation that redefined how the organisation thought about events, engagement, and digital experiences.

Challenge

The cancellation of the festival created immediate and significant challenges across the business.

Beyond the loss of a flagship event, Cannes Lions faced the potential loss of community, engagement, and revenue that had traditionally been driven through a physical experience.

The organisation needed to answer several critical questions:

• — How do we maintain a sense of community when people can no longer gather in person?
• — How do we showcase world-class creative work in a meaningful way?
• — How do we create value for delegates, partners, and sponsors remotely?
• — How do we generate revenue when the core business model has disappeared?

At a time of significant uncertainty, the challenge extended beyond product design.

The organisation needed a completely new operating model, delivered at unprecedented speed.

My role

I was part of the leadership team responsible for defining, designing, and delivering the new digital experience.

Working closely with stakeholders across the business, I helped align multiple departments around a shared vision while leading product design from concept through launch.

My responsibilities included:

• — Leading product design across UX and UI
• — Defining information architecture and user journeys
• — Creating and testing prototypes
• — Facilitating remote workshops across business functions
• — Collaborating with brand teams to establish the digital vision
• — Presenting progress and recommendations to the steering committee
• — Partnering with senior stakeholders across marketing, awards, delegate services, content, commercial teams, and executive leadership

The pace of delivery required rapid decision-making, continuous stakeholder alignment, and close collaboration across the organisation.

Vision

The initial brief was simple:

"We need to replicate the festival."

However, it quickly became clear that recreating a physical event online would not be enough.

The vision evolved into creating a digital platform that could:

• — Reconnect a global creative community during a period of isolation
• — Showcase award-winning creative work at scale
• — Deliver meaningful engagement between delegates, brands, and partners
• — Create new commercial opportunities
• — Establish a foundation for future digital and hybrid events

Rather than viewing digital as a temporary replacement, we positioned it as a strategic extension of the Cannes Lions experience.

Key transformations

Outcome

In just a matter of weeks, the team delivered a digital events platform that enabled Cannes Lions and multiple sister brands to continue engaging audiences during one of the most challenging periods in the organisation's history.

The platform provided a new way for delegates, partners, and creative professionals to connect, consume content, celebrate creative excellence, and participate in events remotely.

What began as a response to a crisis ultimately accelerated the organisation's digital transformation and created a foundation for future digital and hybrid experiences.

Impact

User impact

• — Enabled global audiences to participate despite travel restrictions and lockdowns
• — Preserved a sense of community during a period of significant disruption
• — Provided continued access to industry-leading content, speakers, and award-winning work
• — Supported engagement across multiple digital events and brands

Business impact

• — Created a new revenue-generating digital platform during a period when physical events were impossible
• — Protected audience engagement and brand relevance during COVID-19
• — Established a scalable digital events capability for future growth
• — Supported retention, lead generation, awareness, and brand credibility across the portfolio

Organisational impact

• — Aligned multiple business functions around a shared digital strategy
• — Accelerated digital transformation across the organisation
• — Demonstrated the value of cross-functional product thinking during periods of uncertainty
• — Created a repeatable platform that could support multiple brands and events

Reflection

This project reinforced the importance of design leadership during periods of uncertainty.

The challenge was never simply delivering a digital product. It was helping an organisation adapt when its primary business model suddenly disappeared.

Success came from combining product thinking, stakeholder alignment, rapid execution, and a relentless focus on both customer and business needs.

More than anything, it demonstrated how design can act as a strategic tool for organisational resilience and transformation, particularly when the stakes are highest.

Stakeholder feedback