In June last year, as part of her role as jury president of the Social & Influencer category at Cannes Lions, Amy Ferguson of Special US gave her take on the work that had been entered and duly awarded. Her comments highlighted both the exciting nature of the work in the category and its inherent struggle to contain such an elusive medium. “Social is everything, and everything is social,” Ferguson said. “This category is getting so ubiquitous with the work. That is a challenge moving forward.”

As Cannes Lions moved forward into planning its 2025 event, Ferguson’s assertion that the social and influencer space was “changing literally all the time” was reinforced by the festival’s own actions. Having launched the Social & Influencer category in 2018, Cannes Lions announced in November 2024 that it was to be renamed Social & Creator going forward. If it was intended as a reflection of where this kind of creative work is right now, and how hard it is to pin down, then why do some in the industry feel that the big awards shows are only just catching up with the shifting social landscape – and what they are celebrating is too little, too late?

One such figure is Chris Wall, a long-term and vocal advocate of social and now a freelance creative consultant and founder of creative studio Myths & Legends. Having spent 20 years in the industry, with early stints at SapientNitro and Isobar and, more recently, as head of creative, creative change lead and ECD at Ogilvy, he has seen the sector evolve hugely. In its infancy, Wall says social wasn’t really understood and was often dismissed, yet “over time it pretty much became the de facto touching point – every type of creative execution is going to end up there”.