Australia fell this year in the Cannes Lions rankings to 11th from 7th, marking what some see as a low point in a gradual decline in the nation’s creativity standing on the global stage.
Australia this year tied with India, both taking 18 Lions each, well behind the US, at the top of the league table with 234 Lions, followed by the UK at 82, Brazil 78 and Canada 57.
“Is our creative clout on the world stage slipping? Or is everyone else just catching up? It’s a bit of both,” HERO creative chairman Ben Lilley told AdNews.
Eleven years ago Australia stood at second, but dropped to fifth in 2014. The ranking has bounced around since then.
Yes, the US is a bigger country, more than ten times the population of Australia. However, per head of population, the US also did better, claiming a trophy for every 400,00 people. Australia scored one for every 1.5 million.
By comparison (and perhaps an unfair one), at the Paris Olympics, Australia scored 53 medals, about one for every 500,000 people. The US could manage only a medal for every 2.6 million people.
The US, to win 871 Cannes Lions, put in a massive 7,215 entries, a hit rate of a trophy for every 8.6 entries.
Australia had to make 36 entries to win a trophy, about the same as the UK. India, seen as a hotbed of commercial creativity, needed almost 46 entries to take a trophy.
Tony Hale, the CEO of the Advertising Council Australia, said it was disappointing to see Australia slip out of the top 10 in the Cannes Lions ranking given its long-standing reputation as a global creative powerhouse
He hopes this is a temporary setback but fears it could signal deeper industry challenges, particularly the increasing difficulty agencies face in getting bold, innovative ideas approved.
“A climate of caution favours functional, predictable creative, which not only impacts our creative ranking but also the overall effectiveness of our marketing,” he told AdNews.
“Marketers should be mindful of 'the cost of dull' - a term that highlights the negative impact of uninspired, ordinary creative work.
"Research shows that lackluster ads are far less effective and require more media spend to match the impact of engaging, creative campaigns.
“The Monkeys’ award-winning ‘Play It Safe’ campaign for Sydney Opera House, which took home this year’s Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Film, proves that Australia still has the talent to deliver world-class creative work that stands out. Now, it’s about ensuring we consistently bring that level of excellence, and creativity, to the table.”
The Australian work that does get rewarded at Cannes is celebrated as peak work, including Play It Safe, Ogilvy's ‘10 vs 10’ for Dove and Howatson+Company's ‘Touch’ for Mastercard.
Ben Lilley at HERO said Australia’s always flexed a large creative presence globally for its relatively small size, but now the competition is “fiercer”.
He warned that clients and agencies who produce dull, boring, safe work are rightly ignored by both their customers at the checkout and their peers at the award shows.
“Australian creativity is at its best when it’s, well, authentically Australian: honest, edgy, iconoclastic, maybe a bit raw, maybe even a bit wrong, often funny and always from the heart,” Lilley said.
“Australia’s biggest winners over the past decade have ticked all those boxes, from our own Dumb Ways to Die, which remains the biggest Lion-winning campaign in history to this day, to the likes of Meet Graham and GAYTMs.
“It’s maybe no coincidence that this year’s biggest Aussie winner was aptly titled ‘Play It Safe’ for the Sydney Opera House. It’s another great Australian story told with that magical combination of pitch-perfect tone and faultless craft.
“But it’s also a campaign with a warning message that should be heeded by creatives and clients alike. Playing it safe, which the Opera House didn’t, is the fastest way possible to burn both budgets and award prospects.”
Lilley believes smaller creative countries, like Canada, Argentina and the UAE, beating Australia at this year’s Lions could be a sign that the Australians are starting to play it a little too safe.
He would like to see more of the work that simply could not have been created anywhere else, but conceded that economic pressures aren’t helping.
“Tighter budgets mean less appetite for those roll of the dice ideas that usually rake in the awards – Lions and Effies alike,” Lilley said.
“So, how do we climb back up the ranks? We need to put more Aussie back into Australian creativity.
“It doesn’t have to be loud or brash or hilariously riotous, it can be gentle and warm and from the heart.
“But if we can put more of that Aussie, Aussie, Aussie heart back into our work, that’s what’ll deliver more Lions, Lions, Lions.”
Hannah Melanson, digital creative director at Innocean, said it would be easy to blame dwindling budgets alone for Australia’s decline in rankings but she can see a more worrying trend.
“The most concerning trend isn’t the lack of investment, it’s the lack of ambition. And that’s a worrying equation when it comes to creativity,” she said.
“For many Aussie brands, there’s been a seemingly permanent need for short-term sales to take priority over long-term brand-building spots, making it harder than ever to compete with the (literal) Super Bowl-sized ads coming out of the US.”
Although Australia didn’t reach new heights this year, Melanson believes there’s still a silver lining: the nature of the work.
“When you look at the kind of campaigns Australia is getting noticed for, like The Plastic Forecast, Rip Curl Virtual Pro and FitChix, we’re over-indexing for clever, non-traditional ideas,” she said.
“And with marketing spends likely to continue to shrink globally, our ability to think bigger is our best ammunition against bigger markets and bigger budgets.”
While there are plenty of other obstacles that prevent even objectively excellent work from getting up at Cannes, Melanson believes Australia must change tact to climb back up the ranks.
“If Australia wants to ascend the rankings once again, we’ll need to double down on the shape of thinking that makes us stand out, rather than trying to keep pace with the likes of the US and the UK, only with less,” she said.
“Lucky for us, truly outstanding creative work is often born from constraint, which continues to be a plentiful commodity in our market.”
Becky Morriss, digital creative director at DDB Melbourne, believes shrinking budgets and shifting client priorities mean there’s less room for bold, ambitious projects that stand out on the global stage.
“In the current climate of inflation and economic uncertainty, many Australian businesses are tightening their belts, which has led clients to adopt more conservative, cost-effective strategies,” she said.
“This makes it increasingly difficult for agencies to push forward brave, innovative work - the type of creativity that Cannes celebrates.
“These budget constraints also extend to the agencies themselves. With smaller award budgets, fewer campaigns are being championed at international award shows, reducing visibility.”
In-House Agency Council executive chairman Chris Maxwell said Australia has a rich legacy of "punching above our weight" creatively on the global stage.
“Are we falling behind? Perhaps it’s not so much about losing ground, but rather the game itself evolving,” he said.
“Brands today face a complex landscape—more channels, more technology, and a never-ending demand for content. They have to juggle driving lower-funnel performance while creating those big, memorable brand moments.
“This fragmented approach consumes both time and budget, leaving fewer resources and headspace for bold, breakthrough creative ideas.”
Maxwell said there are still plenty of brave marketers leading the way working together, sweating the details and occasionally taking a leap of faith but the risk associated with taking a bold creative stance has increased.
“We’ve seen brands like Peloton and Bud Light in the US face backlash for taking creative risks, which has understandably made CMOs more cautious, opting for a safer path,” he said.
“However, while breakthrough creativity involves risk, it also offers outsized rewards.”
Reflecting on campaigns like Carlton Draught’s ‘The Big Ad’, the viral success of ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ and Suncorp's ‘One House to Save Many’, Maxwell said Australians have consistently produced some of the world’s most creative and effective work.
But looking to the future, he believes there is value in prioritising entertainment over advertising to drive cut through which is what brands like Redbull, Telstra and Liquid Death Mountain Water are already doing.
Sally Joubert CEO at Luma Research, which provides specialist brand and communications insights, said Australian creatives are still producing high quality ads but they seem to be more focused on connecting with consumers than winning trophies.
“Interestingly we are not seeing any overall decline in the quality or effectiveness of the advertising we are researching,” she said.
“Great advertising is being created in Australia all the time and usually it is built on a strong human truth.
“However, we do see that clients are focusing on winning the hearts and minds of their customers and potential customers rather than trying to win awards.”
Meanwhile, Sam Walters general manager, consulting, at Cubery, which tests the effectiveness of hundreds of ads a year, said he has mixed feelings about Australia slipping down the ranks.
“My initial thoughts on Australia’s drop from 7th to 11th in the Cannes Lions rankings felt like a bit of a storm in a teacup, naturally these rankings fluctuate from year to year,” he said.
“But on closer examination, there does seem to be a gradual, consistent decline in Australia’s standing over time - making it a trend worth exploring. Is Australian creativity in trouble?”
Walters said the drop in ranking may say more about a changing industry than any real decline in Australian talent or quality over the past decade.
“We’re home to thought leaders like Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp, who’ve reshaped the global conversation around branding and marketing,” Walters said.
“Their influence suggests that the criteria for what defines ‘good’ marketing may have shifted, and perhaps - dare I say it - the award criteria haven’t fully kept pace with this change.”
Walters said that Australia’s Cannes Lions ranking is likely not the only measure of success.
“While awards remain important, they don’t always reflect the effectiveness today’s marketers seek,” he said.
“Australian campaigns may actually be setting higher objectives, prioritising long-term effectiveness over creativity for its own sake.”
Alison McKinnon, general manager at Melbourne independent creative agency Town Square, said she doesn’t believe you can have a discussion about creativity (and our potential lack of it here in Australia) without talking about bravery.
“The size and scale of Australia does put us at a disadvantage – we can only work with the clients based here and be truly creative when the remit is not to roll out global assets, which is common with many multinationals even with local agency partners,” she said.
“But we can be only truly creative (and I mean Cannes winning creative) when the client and the agency is brave enough for it.
“And I think we have all lost a bit of that bravery – as an industry and from our clients as well.
“The impact of a global pandemic, job losses, looming recession, cancel culture – it’s hard in the face of all that to do something truly groundbreaking. We used to feel the fear and do it anyway. Now, we feel the fear and mitigate the risks before the work heads out the door.
“I started my career at an agency that, at the time, had the positioning of ‘scary good’. I didn’t realise its power as a young account exec when it was being explained, but that saying has lived with me for over 20 years – and it’s the barometer I’ve had since then for great creativity. It’s a pit of the stomach feeling. You know it when you see it.
“But I think that desire for scary (we all still want good) has waned – and unless the client Is willing to go there, the agency is confined. We answer to briefs at the end of the day – we don’t create for the sake of creating.
“Are we perhaps just being more pragmatic as a nation? Certainly, the work that is shown at Cannes is creative. But does it work the hardest? Sell the most? Move the needle in whatever direction the brief asked it to? Or does it mostly appeal to a bunch of other advertising people?
“I’m not arguing that awards aren’t important (they are both stupid and important at the same time, this I know). But at the end of the day, most people I know in this industry want work that works. Solves a business problem, helps tackle an issue for our clients.
“A Lion along the way is nice no doubt, but no amount of silverware keeps a client when the work you are doing doesn’t work for them.”
Rose Herceg, a jury president at Cannes, and WPP president, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, said true success lies in driving growth through strong agency-client relationships rather than just simply winning awards.
“At WPP, our goal is always to drive growth for our clients with tangible metrics: revenue and sales in the private sector, behavioural change in the public sector.
“Awards that recognise these metrics matter and, of course, we love our fair share. A Cannes Lion win represents the highest standard of creativity and we value them,” she said.
“Yet a Cannes Lion win should be recognition of successful growth and a long-term agency-client relationship, rather than the goal in of itself. That is our true measure of success.”
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