Cannes Jury Spotlight: Laurent Simon

At Cannes Lions, the world’s premier festival recognizing creative excellence, thousands of entries pour in from countries worldwide. Behind the scenes, a carefully selected panel of judges reviews the work that will ultimately take home a coveted Cannes Lion.

Joining the ranks of the industry’s most recognized and respected creative professionals, Laurent Simon, CCO at VMLY&R London, is serving as a juror for Film Craft Lions.

Laurent is responsible for the agency's creative vision and output across the UK market. He leads the creative department, which brings together a wealth of talent from integrated creatives to social and content specialists, innovation, design, and production.

Laurent spent most of his career working on iconic British brands, includingJohn Lewis, The Economist, Colman’s and British Airways, to name a few.
For the most British brand of all, the BBC, he created and led the in-house agency responsible for the entire creative marketing output of the corporation: brands, channels, programs, products, services, apps, digital, and social.

Under his leadership, 2017 and 2018 showed the BBC’s most effective marketing activity on record.

Since joining VMLY&R two years ago, Laurent has led record-breaking work for Viagra, Baileys and the Department for Transport.

How do you spot Cannes-winning work?
Good work makes me jealous, whereas great work makes me happy.

Describe creativity during the pandemic in one sentence?

Remarkably resilient and resourceful.
Creative doesn’t qualify a department. It sums up our industry.

What makes you passionate about your category?

Storytelling is one of the cornerstones of civilization.

There is nothing more captivating and visceral than watching a great story beautifully told.

And just like everything else, the best ones stand the test of time.

What do you hope to take away from judging at Cannes?

Illumination.