The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity received 26,900 award submissions for 2025, up less than 1% compared to last year’s tally. Total entries are down 38% from their peak nearly a decade ago.
A handful of categories, such as Design, Creative B2B, and Entertainment Lions for Sport, saw double-digit growth in entries. Submissions for the Glass Lion, which expanded its scope to honor work that addresses social inequalities beyond just gender discrimination, rose 53%.
“The submissions this year reveal a shift in how creativity is being harnessed for meaningful change for both business and society,”
Marian Brannelly, global director of awards for Cannes Lions, said in a statement. “We’re seeing record growth in categories that demand measurable impact.”
Entries from independent advertising agencies also rose 18% in 2025 from 2024. This comes at a time when morale and feelings of job security are higher at indie agencies than those owned by major holding companies, such as WPP or Omnicom.
Despite the slight bump in overall Cannes Lions submissions this year, the total number of submitted works is 38% lower than an all-time high of 43,101 reported in 2016.
Indeed, annual tallies reveal a downward trend since then, followed by stagnation.
Various reasons help explain the drop in award submissions, with entry fees reaching €2,765 ($3,200) for one of Cannes’ top Titanium awards.
In 2018, for instance, ad giant Publicis paused its participation in award festivals to focus on developing its artificial intelligence platform Marcel—a decision that’s paid off. Cannes Lions estimated Publicis’ absence contributed to an 8% decrease in entries that year.
That same season, Cannes Lions introduced two new categories (Creative Ecommerce and Sustainable Development Goals) and retired three (Cyber, Integrated, and Promo & Activation), changing the types of work eligible.
In an email to ADWEEK last year, a Cannes Lions spokesperson stated that traditional categories, which account for most entries, have ultimately received less work in recent years. Submissions for Print & Publishing, for example, fell from 3,777 in 2016 to 734 in 2024.
“The newer categories, which reflect the work of modern agencies and other brand partners, don’t drive anything like that number of entries,” the spokesperson wrote. “Creative Business Transformation, for instance, or the Innovation Lions, while they highlight the future of the industry, receive a fraction of the traditional categories’ historical entry numbers.”
Source: adweek.com