Canva’s Executive Creative Director reflects on Day 4 at Cannes Lions, making the case that in a world where the tools keep changing, the brands that endure are the ones with the courage to be distinctive and the consistency to earn genuine trust over time.

Four days on the Croisette, and one question I keep coming back to isn’t about budgets, AI, or the next big thing. It’s a simple, yet surprisingly hard one: what makes people care now?

I’ve had an unscientific but genuinely useful test for this, and it comes back to my mum. When our first Canva ad aired, I was at home in New Zealand watching it with her. Thirty seconds later, she turned to me and said, “that was so nice, dear – what was it about?” I’d failed the mum test. Canva is all about empowering everyone to design, so if my mum didn’t walk away feeling like she could pick up the tools and create something herself, we hadn’t quite done our job.

It’s something I come back to often: the best ideas aren’t judged by how clever they are, but by whether they resonate with the people they’re made for. And in today’s world, where attention is harder to earn than ever, that kind of genuine connection matters even more.

Day 4 at Cannes: The brands people remember