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Bienvenue à PR: Cannes Lions Launches New Category

By: Ryan Saale | 01/06/2009

The who's who of the communications industry will convene at this year's Cannes Lions awards with a little surprise - the PR industry. Yes, the world's premier, global awards festival for those passionate about advertising, communications, and media has announced that PR will join the ranks of its ten highly coveted categories. And after 55 years, it's a welcome surprise.

According to the Web site, PR Lions will honor the creative use of reputation management by the building and preservation of trust and understanding between individuals, businesses or organizations and their publics, meanwhile ensuring our industry's place at the communications table.

If you're not familiar with Cannes Lions, you should be. The festival represents the absolute best in the communications field with entries submitted from premier agencies and freelancers around the globe. Each year the entries range from wildly extravagant, kitchen sink campaigns to thoughtfully simple ones, the latter of which happens to be the style captured in my all-time favorite entry - "Truth" by Buenos Aires-based SAVAGLIO\TBWA . The spot is a presidential advert masterfully written with simple, yet highly impactful language, and although the candidate lost the election, the piece remains a hallmark example of creative writing.

Cannes Lions 2009 is June 21-27 and will be well followed by this Standing team member to see how reputation management is defined and crafted around the world.

Posted in Public Relations, Reputation Management