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With the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity kicking off in less than a week, the industry’s attention has shifted towards the annual, global advertising bonanza.

Many of those headed to Cannes are nominated for their work, aiming to network with other attendees or seeking inspiration to bring back to their respective organizations.

Meanwhile, a few attendees are playing an even more influential role: jurors of the work. 

One notable example is Franklin Williams, EVP and executive director of experience design for Area 23, a 2025 MM+M Agency 100 honoree, who is serving as jury president of the Pharma Lions.

Williams succeeds Collette Douaihy, global chief creative officer of health at Dentsu Health, who served as the jury chair in 2024.

Reflecting on his role at this year’s festival, Williams expressed honor at being tabbed for the jury chair post and detailed how he planned to leverage the varied backgrounds of fellow jurors to best evaluate the work.

As chair, he said he plans to shepherd diverse perspectives and push the conversation of creative work forward.

“The tone that I want to strike at the beginning is respect — respect for your fellow jury member, respect for the work and respect for the effort that’s been put into everything that’s gotten to this moment,” he said.

He offered a sense of how he is helming the jury room and what attendees can expect from the work after they arrive over the weekend.

One of his goals is to shift the focus from sizing up pure creativity to recognizing impactful work that affects end users. In the case of healthcare, that is marketing that impacts the patient and their health outcomes.

Williams said medical marketing has evolved significantly in recent years, with a growing emphasis on creative work that empowers individuals to take control of their health.

The AI moment

Yet at a time when more marketers are prioritizing patient-centricity as part of advertising campaigns for their health clients, AI’s role in the process has continued to grow and evolve.

Over the past few years in particular, Williams said ad execs and their firms have transitioned from experimenting with AI to understanding how it can enable and democratize creative processes.

Where the role of the jury becomes important, he noted, is evaluating what AI enables ad agencies to do from a creative perspective and consider its role in expanding capabilities going forward.

Still, he underscored that an awards jury, especially at Cannes, must look beyond current trends to understand deeper creative implications for brands and consumers.

“We want to do our due diligence with assessing the work and then pressure testing it — not just against itself, but also against the industry and where we want to go as an industry,” he said.

Williams reiterated that the future of healthcare marketing is about creating authentic, meaningful connections that help patients and HCPs take action.

While the industry rides the AI wave, Williams said he anticipates a potential push against AI in creative processes at Cannes, as some question whether authenticity in advertising can be achieved through this technology. 

As it relates to AI, he expressed excitement about gaining global perspectives on the innovation from other jurors and attendees. 

He noted that other countries have varying AI restrictions and that since the U.S. generally falls in the middle, there are lessons he can accrue from conversations with his international colleagues.

Making most of Cannes

While so much of the festival is about the work and the broader examination of ongoing industry news and trends, Williams said he wants to remind attendees that it’s crucial to network and make unexpected connections.

Like other leaders advise, he suggested attendees make time to visit the ‘stacks’ at the Palais des Festivals and explore diverse creative work across industries.

Cannes remains an unparalleled opportunity to understand how different markets approach problems facing them by leveraging creativity and technology.

Considering that the health and pharma tracks at Cannes used to be an afterthought and have now carved out their own territory at the festival, Williams predicted that marketers from outside of healthcare will be moved by the industry’s awarded work this time around.

“Watch out for pharma this year — it’s going to shape up to be something that’s pretty spectacular,” he said.