The Cannes Lions festival has continued to exemplify the growing magnitude of professional excellence. Together with its awards programme, its longstanding commitment to the creative realm has, since its inception in 1954, symbolised cross-sector developments within modern communications.

Since 1995, the Cannes Lions festival has equally celebrated the best in burgeoning talent, with the ‘Young Lions’ competition added to the fold in 2014. Today, as the Cannes Lions 2017 festival approaches the halfway mark, the winner of the Young Lions PR competition has been announced as the Hungarian team of Luca Hadnagy and Paloma Medina from HPS Experience.

Organised by the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO), this year’s Young Lions PR category welcomed 22 entrants with a brief delivered by the British Red Cross. The task at hand was to raise awareness of the numerous ‘silent emergencies’ that take place every day. Manifested in major events such as floods, famines and natural disasters, ‘silent emergencies’ take place daily, but seldom reach wider public consciousness.

Blair Metcalfe, client director, MSL, and chairman of Young Lions PR judges, says, “It’s [22 teams] a new record for the Young Lions PR competition here at Cannes, and there were even more qualifying teams who sadly couldn’t join us here today. With hundreds of teams being knocked-out before the 24-hour live challenge here, we really have the best of the best assembled from each participating country. I for one can’t wait to be inspired by their creativity at the judging on Monday.”

Both Hadnagy and Medina’s work will go on to be used in a future British Red Cross campaign, and their winning efforts were awarded gold this evening in Cannes. Yet today’s Cannes Lions reflects much of the modern landscape it celebrates; a festival app aids navigation, hi-tech stages cover the bulk of the coastal city and the festival registers over 11,000 delegates from over 90 countries, with over 130 talks on offer. In addition, the numerous Young Lions entrants are bolstered by a widespread addition of student attendees, inspired to contribute to the future growth of the competition.

Francis Ingham, chief executive of the ICCO, says, “The work from the Hungarian team was excellent, as was all of the work from the finalists. ICCO is always very proud to make the Young Lions PR competition happen.”