Axel Eckstein's Insights from the Cannes Jury: Judging in Times of Algorithms

Being a member of a jury at the Cannes Lions Festival is first and foremost about one thing: a sharp increase in the personal learning curve. I had the honor this year, the festival is still running and now is the right time for a field report.

There were 42 other jurors on my Promo & Activation jury. We were divided into seven subgroups and, together with five other creatives, I had to evaluate 374 pieces of work, a good tenth of the 3429 cases that make Promo & Activation the most extensive of all the categories in Cannes. The work I had to evaluate online was uploaded to the intranet in batches over a period of six weeks. You don't watch over 12 hours of case videos in one day. And the occasional chat with jury colleagues helped me to stay awake.

But first, our jury president Stéphane Xiberras gave his interpretation of the judging criteria in a conference call. We shouldn't think too much about the subcategories or whether a work is a doctorate at all. He placed more emphasis on the question of whether the work has actually been activated and follows a genuine insight or is merely tech naming and shaming.

Following the judging, a much smaller jury panel began to sift through the computer-generated shortlist and turn the best of the 321 works into 102 Lions. That was the end of the judging work for me and most of the other jurors, but we were free to travel to Cannes a week later at the invitation of the award management to take part in jury petit dinners.

So there. At least for two days. To the press conference last Monday, where we had the opportunity to meet Stéphane and a few scattered jury members. We stuck together for a while and the conversations were more interesting than the media releases lying around. There was criticism from the juries affected by the new evaluation regime. Too little human interaction and too little transparency. Algorithms could make submitted works disappear from the intranet at any time and without further information if they were deemed "ineligible". And the jury president would only be allowed to question a single work on the pre-prepared shortlist.

In fact, algorithms are seen as a very practical thing in Cannes. They are also the reason why it is pointless to ask a juror to "favorably note" a particular work. Because all reviews for works from your own network or your own country are automatically eliminated by the system. I received a dozen such requests from all over the world. And there was another reason why they were pointless - the works were good to very good and were ranked higher anyway.

"I received a dozen requests from all over the world."

Algorithms now also calculate the relationship between submitted works and winning Lions at country level, thus providing results for a practice that had been self-evident long before the invention of artificial intelligence: the major award nations also provide most of the jurors.

Which brings us to Switzerland. No, the festival is not doing without Swiss jurors. And no jury positions have been eliminated in the categories in which Switzerland is traditionally favored. Promo & Activation, Media and Direct have as many jurors as before and still have the most of all 23 juries, namely an average of 40 each. And this year, there were once again two people from Switzerland on these juries. The 92 seats that were eliminated have reduced the size of seven other juries, which now have around 12 instead of 25 jurors each. This brings them into line with the 13 other juries, which already had an average of 12 members last year.

It is true that for the majority of the Promo & Activation, Media and Direct jurors there are no longer any discussions in the jury room, which is undoubtedly regrettable. However, this in no way diminishes the influence and chances of Swiss agencies to win at the Cannes Lions Festival. The fact that works from Switzerland once again performed well shows that it is not those who are small that are discriminated against, but only those who are not good enough.

Perhaps the influence of a juror in a category with prejudging has even increased. When a group of only five to six people evaluate cases, each individual opinion carries a lot of weight. 90 percent of the entries that I rated as "sure shortlist" also made the shortlist. To reassure all those who now fear the total erosion of representativeness: The works I found to be good were also mostly voted up in other subgroups, if submitted there. So for creative judges, there really does seem to be such a thing as objective quality.

Finally, let's take a look at the most important thing: the ideas. Only around a third of the winning entries can be regarded as promotions in the classic sense. Namely with the aim of supporting the sale of an offer. Another third pursue pure image objectives, often via PR mechanisms. And a growing number of entries completely abandon any direct link to the sender's actual business field.

The knitting pattern: 1. find a topic that is already established as a problem in the public eye (i.e. in social media) and that reliably triggers sympathy or outrage. Popular this year: women earn less than men, the skills of refugees remain unused, old people are lonely and all the taboos surrounding the female breast. 2. invent a product (preferably an app) that drills into the problem area in the most original way. 3. build a bridge to the brand, even if only with words. An example: Many accidents occur on hairpin bends that are entered at too high a speed. A pillar is now placed in front of each of these bends, which registers cars entering the bend and activates a horn at the opposite end of the bend to warn the cars entering. The sender is an engine oil with the claim "So that everything runs smoothly". When this recipe is applied perfectly, even people like me nod. The case was shortlisted three times.

"Shortlisted in Cannes, that's like gold in national awards."

Shortlisted in Cannes, that's like winning gold in national awards. If you're wondering why your own work didn't make the cut, you should know that it probably wasn't even bad. Some very, very good ideas didn't even make it onto the shortlist. When more than 40,000 entries go into battle, good ideas have many enemies: the better ideas.

Axel Eckstein is Executive Creative Director at Leo Burnet Switzerland and judged at the Cannes Lions 2017 in the Promo & Activation category.