The Campaign Podcast

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In 2025, Cannes Lions was dampened by controversy after three awards were withdrawn over fabrication of case studies and concerns around their legitimacy.

DM9’s “Efficient way to pay” was retracted after the DDB agency was caught using AI to fabricate news coverage and misleading the jury.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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Campaign's Media 360 opened its doors last week to a room of senior marketers, media owners and agency leaders. Food critic and Masterchef presenter Grace Dent opened the two-day conference in Brighton with speakers including co-host of The Rest Is Politics, Alastair Campbell, The Guardian's global chief advertising officer Imogen Fox and Michelle Spillane, managing director, Paddy Power Online at Flutter UK.

This episode features the event's co-chairs: Sannah Rogers, chief executive of Zenith UK, and James Bailey, chief executive of Dentsu Media UK and Ireland. They chat to Campaign's tech and multimedia editor Lucy Shelley about their reflections on the media industry following the conference and discuss the biggest changes affecting the media industry and the people in it.

Before the interview, media editor Beau Jackson and deputy media editor Shauna Lewis chat with Shelley on their reflections after day one, on themes of trust, community and Big Tech.

Further reading:
PepsiCo on how a media shake-up boosted OOH
Bauer’s Thomas Garry wins Media360 Challenge 2026
How Just Eat and British Heart Foundation manage brand risk in influencer marketing
Guardian ads chief: Brands need to embrace cultural turbulence
'If you ask us to make an AI ad, we will inherently fail': Particle6 on AI in production

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The advertising and media industry is going through a period of massive change, as a result of AI, economic and global pressures, organisational restructures and redundancies. In the latest market report from Campaign Red called “The Great Reboot”, we reported that the top holding companies cut 12,000 people from their businesses.

As the industry is contracting, how are the people within it, its leaders and those seeking employment obtaining mentorship to push themselves and the industry forward?

So far this year, we have seen the launch of mentorships schemes from The Marketing Skills Trust, Ogilvy UK and Rapp UK, an expansion of Lollipop mentoring’s existing programme and launch of Zoo.London’s career community.

In this episode, Campaign's editorial team discusses why mentoring is so important in periods of rapid change, if adland puts enough value on the power of mentoring, and what happens if it’s neglected altogether. Fiona Cameron joins the episode as vice president of women’s professional support programme Bloom, and former learning and development partner at Group M, now called WPP Media.

From Campaign, the episode features deputy editor Gemma Charles, deputy creativity and culture editor Charlotte Rawlings, and hosted by tech and multimedia editor Lucy Shelley.

Further reading:
Campaign Inspiring Women Awards winners 2026: Mentor of the Year
What does it take to be an ad agency chief executive?

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