Cannes, France — June 2026. At Cannes Lions, three of the Festival’s 2026 Jury Presidents came together to reflect on the personal journeys, creative philosophies and cultural shifts shaping the future of the industry.
In the session “Creativity in the Making: Shaping Tomorrow with 2026 Jury Presidents,” Chaka Sobhani, Global Chief Creative Officer at TBWA\Worldwide; Pelle Sjoenell, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at NLS Corp. and formerly of Droga5, BBH and Activision Blizzard; and Monique Nelson, Executive Chair of UWG, explored what creativity needs to become next in a world transformed by technology, cultural fragmentation and the urgent need for more meaningful human connection.
The session opened with a powerful statement from Nelson, who positioned creativity not as a response to briefs, trends or technology, but as a response to culture. Her central argument was clear: culture is the brief. For Nelson, culture arrives before the reports, before the trends, before the mainstream notices that something has changed. It is the earliest signal of where people are headed and what they need from brands, institutions and one another.
Nelson described the current moment as one of contradiction. Technology and artificial intelligence are accelerating everything, yet people are asking to slow down. In a world optimized for convenience, audiences are searching for meaning. In a world flooded with content, they are searching for creativity. In a world powered by technology, they are searching for humanity.
That tension became one of the central themes of the discussion. Creativity, Nelson argued, cannot be separated from the human experience because culture itself does not exist without people. It is created, carried, curated and transmitted by communities. It changes with generations, technologies, movements, economic shifts and social pressures. It is never fixed; it is always becoming.
For marketers and agencies, the implication is significant. Brands that want to grow alongside culture cannot treat it as a market to conquer. They must treat it as a community to contribute to. Nelson warned that too many brands confuse visibility with belief, inclusion with belonging and observation with understanding. The strongest brands do not dominate culture; they partner with it.
Nelson also challenged the industry’s assumptions about artificial intelligence. While AI can generate images, music, stories, ideas and entire campaigns, she argued that it cannot create culture on its own. Culture is not content. It is a negotiation between people, lived before it is documented. AI learns from what already exists; culture imagines what is possible.
That distinction places new value on human creativity. Technology can accelerate ideas, but culture generates them. As AI becomes more embedded in creative production, Nelson’s message was that imagination, participation, curiosity and cultural understanding will become more important, not less.
Her perspective reframed the role of creative leaders. When culture is the brief, strategists become stewards, creatives become curators and observers become participants. The responsibility is not only to interpret signals, but to follow them with intention and contribute to a future worthy of the people brands serve.
Chaka Sobhani continued the session with a deeply personal reflection on identity, outsider perspective and the creative power of human psychology. As a first-generation Iranian immigrant who grew up in Exeter in the United Kingdom, Sobhani spoke about being aware from a young age that she was an outsider. Rather than framing that as a limitation, she described it as a source of sensitivity, adaptability and creative strength.
For Sobhani, sitting outside the mainstream sharpened her ability to read rooms, understand emotion and sense how people respond. Those instincts, she suggested, are fundamental to advertising because the work is ultimately not just about marketing. It is about human psychology. Creativity works when it understands people: the people inside organizations, the collaborators making the work and the audiences brands hope to reach.
Sobhani also credited her mother, a scientist and chemical engineer, with helping her understand that creativity is not confined to the arts. Science, engineering and everyday life can all be creative depending on how they are seen. That lesson gave her a broader view of the discipline: creativity is not a department or format; it is a way of looking at the world with curiosity.
Her career across music videos, television, production and advertising shaped another major theme of the session: the importance of maker culture. Before entering advertising, Sobhani worked in environments where making happened every day, where ideas were judged by audiences quickly and where creative teams had to respond in real time. That immediacy, she argued, is something advertising should lean into more.
At ITV, Sobhani learned the value of understanding the mood of the nation and putting audiences first. The creative product was not abstract; it was measured by whether people watched, cared and responded. That experience helped shape her belief that great creative work depends on collaboration, audience instinct and the ability to bring many disciplines together around a shared vision.
Sobhani described herself as a “we” person rather than an “I” person, emphasizing that the best work is rarely the result of individual ego. It comes from crews, partnerships and cultures where people can challenge, build and make together. That belief carried into her agency career, beginning at Mother and later through her work across major global brands.
One of the strongest examples she shared was McDonald’s, a brand she has worked on for more than a decade. Sobhani described McDonald’s as an example of a global brand that succeeds because it understands how to show up locally. The question is not simply how McDonald’s remains consistent around the world, but how it becomes meaningfully Spanish in Spain, British in the UK or culturally relevant in Poland, France and beyond.
Campaigns such as “Raise Your Arches,” “Winter Takes on Colour” and reactive work around Olympic Curry showed how small human observations, cultural timing and brand partnership can become large-scale creative platforms. For Sobhani, these examples underline the importance of trust between brand and agency. The best work emerges when clients and agencies do not sit on opposite sides of the table, but operate as true partners with shared respect and shared responsibility.
Sobhani also reflected on her role as President of the Dan Wieden Titanium Lions jury, describing Titanium as one of the purest tests of creativity because it cuts across formats, channels and categories. The jury is not judging one kind of work. It is judging the heart of the idea and asking whether it points to where creativity can go next.
That ambition connected directly to the Festival’s broader theme of making history. In Titanium, Sobhani said, the goal is to identify the ideas that inspire the industry forward: work that stretches the boundaries of what creativity can do, regardless of whether it appears as activation, experience, technology, commerce, social impact or cultural intervention.
Together, Nelson and Sobhani’s remarks painted a clear picture of the creative future. Creativity will not be defined by technology alone. It will be defined by the people who understand culture deeply, build with others generously, protect human truth and use new tools to expand what brands can mean in people’s lives.
The session’s three-president framing also reinforced a broader truth about Cannes Lions 2026: the industry is searching for work that does more than perform in the moment. It is looking for ideas that carry cultural intelligence, challenge assumptions and open new creative possibilities.
In that sense, “Creativity in the Making” was not only a conversation about judging the best work of the Festival. It was a call for the industry to rethink how creativity is made, who it serves and what kind of future it helps build.
The strongest takeaway was simple but demanding: culture comes first, creativity is collective, and the future belongs to those willing to imagine something different.
