Cannes Lions 2025 will be remembered not only for the awards for great creative campaigns, but also for the controversies linked to the manipulation of case studies. A situation that the sector hopes will not be repeated for the next edition of the international festival, as reflected in the latest advertising film by the New York agency Zulu Alpha Kilo.
In a video he invites the entire industry to reflect on its practices. He has published it on his social channels, but it was officially presented during an awards ceremony organized by the magazine Strategy in Toronto. As stated AdAgeit is part of the tradition of the event that the finalist agencies create self-promotion videos.
“Catch Me If You Cannes”, which creates a play on words with the original title of the film “Catch Me If You Can”, has been the proposal of Zulu Alpha Kilo. In the video, with a marked satirical tone, it presents a group of prisoners who share the reasons for their imprisonment. One of them turns out to be the Creative Director of an agency and admits to having manipulated the results of a campaign to submit it to Cannes Lions. The rest of the prisoners are scandalized and express their grievance at his actions.
“Let’s stop the fraud. Let’s reward real work”; is the message that the piece transmits.
“We always start these videos wondering what would happen if we took a known industry truth to its most absurd conclusion.“, commented Zak Mroueh, Founder of the agency, to AdAge. “This time, it was the idea of fraudulent work taken to the extreme. The moment we imagined a creative director in a prison jumpsuit explaining a fake campaign to hardened criminals, we knew we had a guaranteed success.”.
The piece alludes to the controversies that occurred after the edition of the contest this summer. After the Brazilian agency DM9 admitted irregularities in its “Efficient Way to Pay” campaign for the appliance store Consul Appliances, winner of the Grand Prix in Creative Data, the organization chose to withdraw the award.
The agency had manipulated a case study video presented with false information with artificial intelligence. He altered certain aspects of the videotape, including a client’s testimony, a fragment of North Carolina Senator DeAndrea Salvador’s TED Talk; and a report from the Brazilian CNN.
The case led, just a few days later, to the announcement by Cannes Lions of the implementation of new global standards of integrity and responsibility that will be applicable to all entries. Among other things, from now on each piece presented must have the formal approval of the leader of the participating agency and a senior marketing manager of the advertising brand.
In addition, a dual verification system will be launched that will combine manual (human) analysis with tools powered by artificial intelligence; and a new Integrity Council will also be created, made up of legal, ethical and independent experts from the sector, which will be in charge of reviewing the most complex or controversial cases.
“Catch Me If You Cannes” is the sequel to “Left-Handed Mango Chutney”, presented in November 2022 in the same context. In that video, the agency satirized creations and developments of little value, designed only to achieve awards and not to solve real consumer needs.
The self-promotional video was made through Zulubot, the agency’s in-house production company, and directed by Creative Directors Jonah Flynn and Michael Siegers.
