Cannes Lions renames Titanium Lions in tribute to Dan Wieden

The organisers of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity have paid tribute to Dan Wieden by renaming the Titanium Lions category as Dan Wieden Titanium Lions.

 

The Titanium Lions were a result of Wieden encouraging the organisers to create a new award category for 'game-changing work designed to show the way forward'. This was due to BMW's 'The Hire' campaign which picked up only one Lion in 2003, because the jurors thought it was an outstanding piece of work but was outside the boundaries of their categories.

 

Philip Thomas, chairperson, Lions, said, “Dan Wieden shaped Cannes Lions in so many ways, but the creation of the Titanium Lions is the most dramatic, and most fitting for such a visionary. That this award will forever reflect his passion, commitment and creative genius by bearing his name will, I hope, be a fitting memorial from our industry to one of its greatest talents.”

 

Simon Cook, CEO, Lions, added, “We continue to honour Dan Wieden and brief our Titanium juries using his original, timeless 20 year old definition. It’s because of Dan that we ask the jury to award work that ‘causes the industry to stop in its tracks and reconsider the way forward' year on year. The Dan Wieden Titanium Lions will forever honour his legacy and serve as a symbol for game changing creative excellence for generations to come."

 

Wieden served as a Cannes Lions jury president twice. In 2012 Wieden was honoured as the Lion of St. Mark. He passed away last month.

 

Karl Lieberman, global CCO, Wieden+Kennedy, said, “Dan believed creativity thrived in chaos. One of the ways he consistently fed that chaos was by always questioning the way things had been and pushing us to search for new and different and better ways forward. That meant pushing the limits of the work, our clients, the industry’s stance on diversity and what a creative workplace should look like. When Dan created the Titanium Lion, it was about recognising that it wasn’t about doing the same things over and over and just getting iteratively better in the process, it was about shaking the whole thing up and doing something so completely unprecedented and unexpected that it would startle people and help this business to rethink everything.”