From 226 entries this year, eight Innovation Lions were awarded today at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including the Grand Prix to What3Words, London for “3 Words to Address the World,” which replaces traditional addresses with a unique three-word combination based on geographical co-ordinates for each 3m x 3m square of the planet.
The system has particular applications in the developing world and was cited by Innovation Lions Jury president Nick Law, global chief creative officer of R/GA, as an example of systematic, Silicon Valley thinking–relevant, he said, because, “As a jury, we were very concerned about problems to be solved.”
Meanwhile the Creative Data Lions received 609 entries from which 28 Lions were awarded, though not a Grand Prix.
Creative Data Lions Jury president David Sable, global CEO of Y&R, described the role of the jury as “creating a bar which will be raised again next year, and the year after,” and that there was such strong diversity in the first year’s entries, it had made identifying an overall winner challenging. “We feel that every Lion we awarded was tight, clear, representative of its sub-category, but we felt that it was inappropriate at this stage to choose one to represent the totality.”
