- Jul 21, 2017
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
We were excited to attend Cannes Lions, having been selected as one of the companies taking part in the Cannes Innovation program.
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity celebrates creativity across a number of sectors, bringing together innovative and talented people in a variety of events and awards. The Festival revolves around the commercial, social and cultural impact that creativity can have. There was so much to see and do, and we made the most of the networking opportunities available!
We were delighted to be one of only three startups working with Vizeum, the internationally renowned communications network on their Dentsu Aegis Dragons’ Den style event ‘Spark’. The event was set at their beautiful beach house terrace location and presented by the lovely Lucy Hockings. For this program, we gave a short talk based around the brief “empowering society through digital”, with a focus on capacity for creative thinking.
This was a brilliant opportunity to present Smartzer to a panel of successful and expert judges, consisting of David Shing (AOL), Gabrielle McGee (Tory Burch Foundation), Thomas Le Thierry (Vizeum) and Maggie Dehler (Fox). We were able to draw on a number of Smartzer features, such as the applicability of our unique player to any video content. This means that there is scope for future use in education and charity videos, where we can draw from the experiences and networks that we’ve built up in the retail sector. Additionally, we believe that through sharing our vision for digital creativity and innovation we can show the importance of video content and the power that it can hold in a variety of contexts when utilised effectively.
There was a fantastic atmosphere at the event, and it was brilliant to speak to the judges afterwards, as well as chat to the other startups taking part – SUPA and Cluep.
Thank you to Cannes Lions for having us, and thank you to Vizeum and Dentsu Aegis for having Smartzer take part in Spark in such a lovely location!