60% of Cannes shortlist led with social media

This is compared with 50% of the total pool of entries leading with this channel. The analysis, carried out by Warc, revealed that 44% used online video as a lead channel (versus 34% of the total pool), while television was a lead channel for 48% (versus 40% in the total pool).

In the five years that Warc has been analysing the awards, the average number of media channels used in entries has increased from 5.2 channels to 7.6 channels. Social media, online video and PR have all seen significant growth ( 85% of case studies used social media in the 2015 Cannes Lions compared with 51.9% in 2011 ); 64% of entries used PR (the same percentage used online video) – both cases are more than double the 2011 figures.

“We observed a dominance of social media statistics (views, impressions, etc.) as evidence of business impact in many submissions,” said Wendy Clark, president, Sparkling Brands & Strategic Marketing for Coca-Cola North America (and this year’s Creative Effectiveness jury president). “In a digital world, increasingly these statistics are non-differentiating. They are, in fact, table stakes of what all work must accomplish as a baseline.”