Will the Cannes 'integrity standards' stop false or misleading entries?

It has been a month since Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2025 came to a close, but mention of the prestigious awards in adland is far from over.

Rumblings of fake or misleading case studies, featuring manipulated content, AI and false claims, have led to several campaigns being withdrawn from the trophy cabinet.

As a result, the awards body has launched a set of “Global Integrity Standards” in a bid to hold entrants to account and, it is hoped, prevent illegitimate entries in future. 

The integrity standards include five accountability measures: Ownership and Authorship; Veracity of Claims; Consequence of Misrepresentation; Due Process & Independent Oversight; and Transparency in Governance.

Agencies will have to approve all submissions by the business leader and a new dual-layer verification system will be used for case study claims. An Integrity Council will review escalated cases.

Cannes Lions also said it could ban agencies for up to three years if they submit “wilfully false or misleading work”.

An annual Integrity Audit will be published to document concerns, with the aim of continuously improving the system and setting a benchmark for future entries.

The backlash has, naturally, been a point of contention for adland leaders. Campaign contacted a number of global creative chiefs to take part in this question piece, but all but one declined or did not respond to the request for comment.

Cannes Lions has been quick to react to the wave of controversy, but will the new integrity standards stop false or misleading entries?

Lynsey Atkin
Founder and partner, Baby Teeth

If you could commit the perfect crime and get away with it, would you? A classic question and one that ultimately comes down to one's own mentality – yes you avoid actual jail time, but can you live within a crushing guilt-prison of your own making?

Apply this thinking to Cannes and not, say, murder or a multimillion-pound heist, and I'm sure there are some Lions on shelves out there, eyes forever boring into the souls of those who won them by "getting away" with a few mistruths.

All of this is to say that "integrity standards" is a weird set of words. Truth isn't the same as integrity. And integrity isn't something you can suddenly demand – it either exists in something, or someone, or some agency – or it doesn't. Yes, maybe this new set of "standards" will stop a few of the false plays for gold, but please let's not confuse having integrity with not wanting to get caught.

Justine Armour
Global chief creative officer, Forsman & Bodenfors

I appreciate the swift and surgical response from Cannes Lions, but is this an overreaction to a couple of dodgy entries? This might be naive, but I genuinely doubt that case studies are falsified at scale; the creatives I know are way too paranoid for that. The accuracy of entries isn’t the biggest issue award shows are facing.

There is a bigger reckoning coming for the awards industrial complex that relentlessly shifts the focus away from the artistry of our best work on to all the less poetic things about our industry. There are so many categories that winning is beginning to lose meaning, real work for our core clients gets lost in the fray of stunts made for shows, mediocre work gets awarded as jurors trade votes, and the work’s true authors are rarely there to collect their recognition. An industry powered by the creativity and energy of young people makes little effort to include them in its biggest festival. Like so much else in our business, disruption is imminent and I welcome it.

Aidan McClure
Founder and chief creative officer, Wonderhood Studios

The one that sticks out for me (not just because it’s the first one on the list) is the signing-off one: "Ownership and Authorship". Presumably one of the two signatures required will be mine on future Wonderhood entries.

This will have a big impact on behaviour. It reminds me of when I had to sign off proofs. You ink the back to say you’re happy for it to go to print. It’s your name against that piece of work and, my god, I would then double check it for spelling errors, the right telephone numbers etc, because the buck stopped with me.

Now I’m not saying for a second my team would try and pull a fast one. But we’ve built an industry where awards grow businesses and leaders incentivise their departments to win through bonuses, pay rises and promotions. It’s no wonder there becomes a grey area around what is sexing up the dossier and what is simply wrong. As a leader, you will now have to make that call and put your name against that decision. That’s a good thing. 

Trevor Robinson
Founder and executive creative director, Quiet Storm

The sanctions Cannes Lions has put into place will act as a deterrent, but tackling this issue isn’t just the responsibility of award shows. Too many people at the top in the industry turn a blind eye to awards-entry fakery.

Scam ads have always been around, but this behaviour is getting more prevalent with increased uncertainty in the industry. With budgets tightening and redundancies on the rise, there’s a drive to win at any cost and this is fuelling more cheating.

Fakery and misrepresentation are being facilitated further by AI. We need a concerted effort to curb this from the leadership at the big networks and agencies. This is not an awards show issue, it’s an industry problem and needs to be treated as such.

Jo Moore
Creative director, Do Not Behave

Let’s remember that false and misleading entries are not a new thing. With the proliferation of AI, perhaps it’s just more tempting and easier to create these types of entries. But, all of this is actually missing something bigger and raises some far more important questions. What are the underlying reasons for this behaviour? Where does this dishonesty stem from? Why on earth do agencies go to such extraordinary lengths to beat the system?

Has Cannes Lions taken on the antithesis of the pure celebration of creativity it should embody, and become more about power and politics?

Who can argue against better integrity standards? They will, however, be only worth the paper they are written on if they are effectively implemented. It remains to be seen whether they will compel agencies to behave. This will depend on how Cannes implements its new standards. So, as ever, the proof will be in the pudding.