The lions of creativity roar again in Ecuador with the return of the in-person Lions Talks format, organized by Diario EL UNIVERSO, Lions Cannes representative in the country. After the pandemic and virtual editions, the most important agencies in the country and the region meet again to bring us a piece of the Cannes Lions festival that took place in France last June.

The Cannes Lions Festival gathered more than 11,000 delegates from 90 countries and received around 30,000 works from hundreds of agencies that will be evaluated and awarded the Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions, the most prestigious award in the industry considered the Oscars of advertising. . About 27,000 works participated in Cannes this year. The United States, for example, had a total of 7,300 entries, compared to Ecuador, which came in with 59 spread across different categories.

Representatives of Ecuador are participating in Cannes Lions 2023

Diana Quinrtanilla, in charge of the production of Lions Talks, which took place for the first time in Quito this Tuesday, November 7, from 2 to 7 p.m., at the Go Hotel, and which will also experience an edition in Guayaquil, in the Turquesa room in the Mall del Sol, this Thursday, November 9. “It’s a day of talks where there will be speakers who participated in Cannes, and basically the introduction of creativity for the advertising part will be discussed. It’s the first time it’s being done in Quito, so there are many agencies participating,” Quintanilla noted.

He added that the goal of this reunion is to revive the ideas of creative people, which is also reflected in this year’s slogan: Revival of ideas. “Because we haven’t done that – Lions Talks – since the pandemic, although it’s true that we did almost the previous year, but we personally have the opportunity to maintain that connection with speakers who bring us a little creativity. which is presented at the festival”, said the spokesperson of the event.

Prominent personalities and brands from the world of creativity and advertising such as YouTube and Tiktok arrived in the country with their representatives to participate in this event. Among them are, for example, the Brazilian YouTuber Mariana Ribeiro, Natalia Arévalo, regional head of Tik Tok in Latin America, Sergio Franco, executive and creative director of the Fahrenheit DDB agency from Lima, and many other creative people.

Franco, for example, highlighted the jump in the quality of Ecuadorian advertising and creativity. “Ecuador has long been a source of good ideas,

When they called us and told us that it was focused on Cannes Lions, I said that this is what the industry needs to develop and start imitating the great creative work that is being done abroad,” said the Peruvian creative.

The winning Young Lions duo creatively dealt with postpartum depression

The creative and executive director of Fahrenheit DDB participated in the forum with his speech “Global ideas ‘made in’ Latin America. “A lot of times in this part of the world we work with local clients, which are very big, but they are local clients, like Coca Cola and other big clients, we have them, but things come from outside,” explained Franco. The challenge, the creative continued, is how to open a space in this jungle of big brands, from big countries with brands that are local, that are very well-known,” said the expert.

Franco indicated that he thinks this is something that often happens in Ecuador and Peru and that it is a challenge for the creative vision of local brands to start living up to the big global brands.

Meanwhile, Quintanilla revealed that Diario EL UNIVERSO is also participating with the award for the new category, Transmedia. The prize for the winners will be a ticket to the Cannes Lions Festival in 2024. A spokesperson explained that this new category was born from the premise that communication is undergoing a transformation both on paper and digitally.

In addition, after the edition that will take place on Thursday in Guayaquil, on Friday, November 10, the gala awards ceremony of the Condor Festival will take place, which recognizes Ecuadorian advertising by rewarding the agencies that applied for this Lions Talks festival with their work. .