Image courtesy of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
With the Cannes Festival of Creativity just a few days away, we caught up with Suresh Raj, Chief Growth Officer at McCann New York and 2024 Glass Lion juror, on what it means to him to have input on awarding work that is driving effective change for equal representation and diversity.
Congratulations on your nomination as a juror for the Glass Lion at Cannes! What does this mean to you?
Thank you! This is a tremendously humbling opportunity as I feel my career has come full circle. The appointment has had a real impact on me professionally as well as personally. Having been part of an underrepresented group in this industry for so long, being asked to join the Glass Jury it genuinely feels like my voice finally matters, having championed for equity and equality for those like me, and for those who experience the same obstacles as me. But more importantly, as part of the Jury, we get to effectively impact the creative industry by recognizing work that aims to drive systemic change and giving it the impetus it needs to push on doing just that. So, this, hopefully, has long term societal impact.
The Glass Lion awards the best activations that bring about authentic change relating to gender equality. What criteria or benchmarks will the jury use to select the winners?
Cannes provides very clear guidance on the criteria – “The work will need to demonstrate ideas intended to change the world. It should set out to positively affect ingrained gender inequality, imbalance or injustice, and entries should illustrate how the work tackles, highlights or redresses issues of gender representation”. As a Jury member, we’ll be holding each piece of work accountable to this criteria and stress testing the systemic change and social impact each one has delivered. So, keeping true to this is going to be crucial.
Have you noticed any specific trends among the entrants this year?
Whilst I cannot reveal the details of any specific entry, the one trend that is clear is that there still remains SO MUCH to be done in terms of addressing gender inequality in all forms – social acceptance, economic, political, health, safety – too many spectrums to mention – and across every continent. But as mentioned before, it’s the work that is really addressing (and proving) systemic change that really rises to the top, especially if it addresses uncomfortable issues rooted in brave creative excellence.
And last, taking a look at the marketing industry itself, what more can we do to ensure sustainable equality, diversity and inclusion within agency structure?
We really need to ensure that the bench of talent coming up is genuinely diverse. Whilst we have indeed made strides, our industry is still predominantly monochrome, and the pool of talent of underrepresented individuals is limited. The more we can do to make the marketing industry a viable, visible and attractive career path for these communities by directly empowering them and even reaching out to them whilst they’re still in the schooling system, we will hopefully begin to close the gaps that exist in the agency (and brand) world. Importantly, in doing so, we need to ensure fundamental things are in place like pay parity, equal access to healthcare and family benefits, equal consideration for roles, and more.