The Campaign Podcast

The Campaign team looks forward to Cannes Lions in this preview episode about the festival, which runs from 22 to 26 June. Editors from our sites around the world give their tips for the festival and discuss everything that’s going on at Campaign House, our dedicated venue at Cannes. Plus they talk about how the Lions award entry rules have changed this year, the work from their region that they would like to see win and the mood in the ad industry.

Gideon Spanier, UK editor-in-chief of Campaign, hosts the podcast, alongside Maisie McCabe, editor of Campaign UK, Nikita Mishra, editor of Campaign Asia, Jameson Fleming, editorial director of Campaign US, Vinita Bhatia, editor of Campaign India, and Chris Powell, co-editor of Campaign Canada.

This is the first of three Cannes global podcast episodes. The second episode will be recorded at Campaign House and published during the festival and the final episode will look back on Cannes and be released the following week.

See the full agenda for Campaign House at: https://www.campaignatcannes.com/

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Lord Heseltine tells the story of the birth of the European Space Agency. Why post-Apollo, when the US was spending £1.2 billion a year on space, the whole of Europe was spending just £200 million. Why the birth of ESA was driven by the self-interest of three major countries. Why the US general with a $29 billion budget for the Star Wars project wanted to invest in Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Why, the idea that Britain could compete alone with the technologies that were accumulated and available to the American capitalist system was “simply laughable”. Why “being European is not selling out British interests”. And why Margaret Thatcher told him: “If you want to get on and put your budget into this, you can, but you're not getting any of mine."

Join Alice and Lord Heseltine as they pick apart the negotiating contrivances and the wheeling and dealing to circumnavigate “turkeys not voting for Christmas” that ultimately put European space on the map.

Contributors:
Alice Bunn, President of UKspace
Dr Alice Bunn OBE FIMechE FRAeS CEng | LinkedIn
UKspace: Overview | LinkedIn

Lord Heseltine, Member of the House of Lords

Key topics covered:

Creation of the European Space Agency (ESA)
US "Star Wars" program and brain drain
Geopolitical case for European R&D collaboration
Impact of Brexit on science and technology

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Ahead of Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity taking place next week, Campaign catches up with three jurors to give us an insight into the judging process and what they expect from the festival and its winners this year.

Helen Rhodes, chief creative officer at Grey London; Amanda Morrissey, global brand president at iProspect and James Brook-Partridge, head of production at WPP Production UK join the episode. They discuss the new transparency guidelines and how it's impacted the judging process, the added AI subcategory in the craft awards and which work they think will win. Morrissey who is judging the media lions said that the entrants are leaning more towards entertainment this year, while Brook-Partridge and Rhodes argued that craft becomes even more valuable with the insurgence of AI.

Campaign will be at Cannes with a full week of sessions at Campaign House, including interviews with WPP chief executive Cindy Rose, Publicis Groupe chief executive, Arthur Sadoun, will.i.am, and a chat with Ian Russell, chair of the Molly Rose foundation on the safety and accountability of digital platforms.

Further reading:
Cannes Contenders: Instacart
Cannes Contenders: Waitrose & Partners
Cannes Contenders: Anthropic
Cannes Contenders: Bournville
Cannes Contenders: McDonald’s

Coming up in the Campaign calendar:
The Campaign Ad Net Zero Awards second entry deadline has been extended to Thursday 28 May.

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In 2025, Cannes Lions was dampened by controversy after three awards were withdrawn over fabrication of case studies and concerns around their legitimacy.

DM9’s “Efficient way to pay” was retracted after the DDB agency was caught using AI to fabricate news coverage and misleading the jury. Two others Lions were also removed from the agency. In response, Cannes Lions updated the entry process and introduced a set of "integrity standards" to ban agencies for up to three years that submit "wilfully false" campaigns.

Campaign's UK editor Maisie McCabe recently spoke to Cannes Lions on the new awards process and "necessary" reset to the standards. In this episode, Campaign's editorial team discuss how the awards will be different this year, both for those that have entered and the juries that are judging them, and what the industry makes of the changes. Plus, the team reveal how the Cannes Lions is making efforts to reduce bias in the judging rooms.

Hosted by tech and multimedia editor Lucy Shelley, this episode includes McCabe, creativity and culture editor Gurjit Degun and reporter Eszter Gurbicz. It was edited by Haymarket's producer Inga Marsden.

Further reading:
Cannes Lions retires Creative Company of the Year Award
Decade-old Sainsbury’s ad used in Gut’s 2024 Media Grand Prix-winning case study
Cannes Lions entries rise 'reflecting strong global participation'
Icaro Doria steps down as co-president and CCO of DM9 following Cannes controversy
Adland’s ‘New Year's’ resolution should be to revive its integrity at Cannes Lions
Maybe Cannes Lions isn't capable of picking all of the best work

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In 2025, there was a major rollback of DEI initiatives, and in 2026 the gender pay gap widened in advertising, while it shrinks in other sectors.

However, the IPA Census reported the proportion of women in C-suite surpassing 40% in adland for the first time, and ethnic minority representation at senior levels improved following two successive years of decline.

Campaign’s School Reports highlight and critique an agency’s efforts to improve its diversity, which has received some criticism for focusing too much on race and gender and overlooking class.
In this episode, Campaign's journalists are asking whether, in a time of declining DEI initiatives, an agency should be judged by its diversity, how much do clients care, and is agency diversity becoming less of a priority.

Hosted by tech and multimedia editor Lucy Shelley, this episode includes premium content editor Nicola Merrifield, deputy media editor Shauna Lewis and UK editor Maisie McCabe.

Further reading:
Why has adland's gender pay gap got worse?
School Reports 2026: The end of “performative window dressing” for diversity

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