Norway re-enters the race in Cannes

The Norwegian advertising industry is making a confident return to Cannes Lions, with entries rising for the first time since 2022. Agencies cite stronger creative ambition, bolder client briefs and renewed faith in the value of originality. The result is an industry eager to test itself once again on the global stage By Yngve Garen Svardal news editor, KOM24.

NORWAY’S advertising world has regained its confidence, a confidence recognised by the industry itself. It has been several years since Norway has submitted this many entries to Cannes Lions.

“We believe this comes down to two things,” says Egil Pay, creative director at TRY Reklame. “After several years with more reuse of existing advertising, the industry is now investing more in original creative work. Norwegian agencies have also become better at creating integrated 360 campaigns rather than traditional advertising. That opens up more categories in Cannes, and therefore more total entries from fewer campaigns.”

Norwegian entries to Cannes Lions have plunged for several years in a row. In 2022, Norway submitted as many as 156 entries. After that, the number fell year by year until 2025, when there were only 75 Norwegian entries. That was a halving in just a few years, which also showed in last year’s Lion haul, when Norway won only one Silver Lion and one Bronze Lion, awarded to NewsLab and POL respectively. Now, however, the trend appears to have turned. This year, Norwegian entries are up by as much as 21 percent. This year, 91 Norwegian entries will compete to secure a Lion or two. As usual, TRY has submitted the most entries, with 24 in total. “A Lion in Cannes carries enormous weight. What also makes Cannes unique is that the Festival celebrates both creativity and effectiveness. There is not much room for silly work there,” Pay says. TRY has a long tradition in Cannes and has brought 37 Lions home to Norway since 2000, five of them Gold. Pay says Cannes is the arena where they measure themselves against the best in the world. It is about prestige and recruitment, but most of all about seeing where the international bar is set and bringing inspiration home, he explains. “We see that clients are increasingly recognising the value of creativity, reflected in the fact that many of the largest international clients themselves have a strong presence at the festival,” he says.

More courage in the briefs

Pay believes Norwegian advertising is currently on the rise. “There is more courage in the briefs, and clients are more willing to back ideas that truly stand out,” he says. At the same time, TRY has seen a decline in the number of entries. He says this is because they have become more selective.

“This year, we believe we have a really strong piece of work in the IKEA campaign ‘Made for Life’, a campaign that has already won in several international competitions. It therefore makes more sense to spend the Cannes budget on entering it in many categories, rather than spreading the money across several different pieces of work in fewer categories. So the strategy is to go deep with the best work, not broad with everything,” he says. Kristina Skogen CEO at Anorak is currently delivering record numbers, which is also reflected in the number of entries submitted to Cannes.

This year, Anorak is the second-largest Norwegian player, with as many as 19 entries, compared with only six last year.“We are breaking with the trend in our own category in most areas. We are more profitable, we are growing faster than our category, and we have 12 more employees than at the same time last year. Over the past two years, we have seen strong development in our client portfolio, and we get to work with complex issues across many categories. That makes it natural for us to submit to Cannes. It is an extension of the everyday work we are already doing,” she says, calling it a stress test of their level. With such strong growth in submitted entries, Anorak is helping drive the overall increase in Norwegian entries. Skogen says she believes this is linked to the industry regaining its confidence after receiving confirmation that artificial intelligence cannot take strategic creativity away from humans.

“In a world where most things are going to hell, generating emotion through creativity is what actually lasts. Letting the work we have put a lot of love, effort and investment into test itself on the international stage is a good thing,” she says. The relatively newly established agency 11:11 is making a strong move with as many as eight submissions to Cannes Lions. Agency CEO and partner Espen Haugen calls it a healthy sign for the industry that the number of Norwegian entries is rising for the first time in several years.

“It is an obvious sign that the industry is developing in the right direction when it comes to quality and profitability,” he says. He believes the market turned some time ago, and that optimism and willingness to invest have increased. Haugen says the agency is built on the basic idea that good ideas are good business. He says they quickly gained trust from what he describes as large, influential players. “We set ourselves the ambition of creating work of international standard. That means it must have high creative quality, strong effectiveness and an element of fame that makes people want to talk about it and allows it to stand on its own feet,” he says.

He adds that he is extremely proud that they already have work strong enough to compete in Cannes. They have submitted two pieces of work, which will compete across a total of eight categories.

Janne Brenda Lysø is creative director at POL and also sits on the Film Jury in Cannes. The agency has strong traditions in Cannes and secured one of last year’s two Norwegian Lions, among other achievements. This year, however, POL has only three tickets in the basket as it competes for gold in Cannes. “If you want to say you are among the best Norwegian agencies, Cannes is a benchmark,” she says. Although prices have gone up and many in the Norwegian industry have struggled financially in recent years, she is clear that agencies need to submit to Cannes. She calls it part of their marketing. “If you believe in creativity and have a stated goal of being among the best agencies in the country, you cannot opt out of the World Cup,” she says.

She says the reason they have submitted only one piece of work in three categories is that their strongest card, the much-discussed campaign for Munkholm beer may be difficult to understand in an international context. “It is easier to submit work for a bank than for a quirky Norwegian brand no one knows. There may be cultural context, language or something else that means it does not work in Cannes,” she says. Lysø calls the increase from Norway this year a good sign, but she does not dare to call it a trend yet. “It may be coincidental. It may be work that has done well internationally, or that one has a piece of work that functions across several categories in a given year,” she says. The agency with the loud name NOSLEEPTILLBROOKLYN has made an international mark over the past year, including three Golds at the ESA Awards, and a Grand Prix at the BEA Awards, becoming the first Norwegian agency ever to do so. The agency has submitted seven entries to Cannes this year following its international success in other competitions.

“We do not think long-term. We assess it year by year. Now we have a project that has won a great deal in other competitions, so both we and the client were curious about whether the project could do well in Cannes,” says COO Aris Theophilakis. He says it would be fun if the work they have done for Nordic insurance company Gjensidige received recognition in the advertising world.

“It would be a nice feather in the cap, but the cap already looks good,” he says.