How 2 Newhouse Students Won the Top Student Creative Advertising Award in the World: The Cannes Future Lions Grand Prix

In June 2024, Newhouse School creative advertising students Molly Egan and Marlana Bianchi walked across the stage to claim the most prestigious student award in the world: the Cannes Future Lions Grand Prix, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France.

The Cannes Lions Awards are so prestigious, they are considered the Oscars of the advertising industry. And this year, Syracuse made history as the first U.S. undergraduate university to win a Cannes Future Lions Grand Prix. In 2018, Syracuse became the first U.S. undergraduate university to ever win a Cannes Future Lions award.

This year’s competition saw entries from 245 schools across 59 countries—three times the number of entries from the previous year.

Each year, the competition releases a brief for students to answer. The brief for the 2024 competition was for Spotify. Egan and Bianchi earned the award through their compelling entry, “Break the Sound Barrier,” designed to make music streaming inclusive for the deaf community.

Ad Age, the top publication in the creative advertising industry, recognized the win with the headline, “Syracuse University Creatives Win Future Lions Grand Prix with Spotify Sign Language Project.”

“‘Break the Sound Barrier’ is phenomenal, bravo. My favorite ideas make me deeply jealous that I didn’t think of them. And they make me ask: ‘How has this not been done yet?’ Because it’s so good,” said Avi Steinbach ’14, creative director/writer at Ogilvy and alumnus of the Newhouse creative advertising program.

Steinbach also won his first Cannes Lions Grand Prix this year in the Social and Influencer Category for the “Michael CeraVe” campaign. He was involved in every aspect of its creation—from the initial concept and pitching CeraVe to the script, social concepts and Super Bowl spot.

A Campaign That “Cuts Through the Noise” 

Months before Cannes, Egan and Bianchi were in their Portfolio III course taught by Mel White, a professor of practice of advertising, thinking about how to “create campaigns that cut through the noise.” Portfolio III is the final course for creative-track advertising majors at the Newhouse School.  

White integrates the Cannes Future Lions competition into her Portfolio III course curriculum, providing students the opportunity to learn how to create advertising campaigns that use new technology to connect brands with their audiences.

In class, White showed an example of how to use AI deepfake technology in a fun and engaging way— an example in which AI is not used for deceitful purposes.

White showed a Doritos campaign using deepfake technology that lets people who can’t dance move exactly like Grammy-winning artist Lil Nas X. The instructions guide people to record random body movements on their phones before applying a filter, which transforms their movements to match those by Lil Nas X.

This example inspired Egan and Bianchi to explore how they could use deepfake technology for their idea. “This fun, unproblematic use of deepfake technology made us start to think about how it can be applied in other innovative ways,” Egan said.

In class, White puts her students in art director and copywriter teams for the semester to simulate the ad industry. For their creative team, Bianchi was the art director, and Egan was the copywriter. For an in-class exercise, White challenged all the creative teams to solve a brand problem using new technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality.

This exercise prepared them to answer Spotify’s 2024 Future Lions brief, which asked, “How can Spotify spread positivity by using technology to bring listeners closer to the creators and communities they love?” The brief encouraged students to use new technology and uplift underrepresented communities. 

“A week later, when Molly and Marlana presented their idea, ‘Break the Sound Barrier,’ in class, we were in awe. Everybody’s jaws dropped to the floor,” White said.  

In the coming weeks, Egan and Bianchi received thorough feedback on “Break the Sound Barrier” from White, their peers and Kevin Goff ’05, a creative director at Purple Strategies and former creative director at Leo Burnett, DDB and FCB.

For Portfolio III, White created a mentorship program using her industry connections to pair each creative team with an award-winning creative director from a top ad agency. Goff served as mentor to Egan and Bianchi.

Guidance from White and Goff in Portfolio III helped Egan and Bianchi elevate their concept. White steered them to focus on “Break the Sound Barrier” from 10 ideas they initially presented in class. She also helped them sharpen their idea’s execution. Goff helped them simplify and refine their idea.

“Their guidance was instrumental to our success,” Egan said. 

Added Goff: “Molly and Marlana started with a smart idea. But more impressive was their drive to keep pushing it to be better. With that kind of work ethic and passion, it’s only a matter of time before they earn another trip back to Cannes.”

The Inspiration Behind the AI Idea 

Egan and Bianchi said their goal was to make music streaming inclusive for the deaf community.

“Sometimes the best ideas are your first ideas,” Bianchi said. “For me, they often come late at night when I’m exhausted and falling asleep at my desk. This idea started like that, and then Molly and I built on it to create something truly unique.”

Egan said their inspiration began with what she called the unforgettable halftime show at the 2023 Super Bowl.

“Rihanna headlined, but she wasn’t the only performer to leave a lasting impression,” she said. “At that time, Marlana was studying abroad in Florence, Italy, and I was in my college house without ESPN, so we both ended up watching the show on YouTube. From our separate corners of the world, we were mesmerized. Rihanna was split screen with Justina Miles. Miles, a deaf sign language performer, didn’t just translate Riri’s music—she embodied it.”

With electrifying energy, Miles created a whole new dimension to the performance. She brought every lyric and note to life, performing each word while dancing to Rihanna’s beats. Her hands told the story, and her body caught the rhythm so precisely that it felt like she was channeling the core of Rihanna’s music, Egan said.

“Marlana and I couldn’t stop replaying her performance, captivated by how she brought the music to life for both deaf and hearing fans,” Egan added.

Little did they know, this was the first time a deaf sign language performer like Miles was invited to join the Super Bowl halftime show. This major move for music inclusivity is what inspired Egan and Bianchi’s award-winning idea. 

Another source of inspiration was MasterCard’s “True Name” campaign, which White showed in class. The campaign inspired them to think about how ideas can move the needle on inclusivity. “True Name” lets transgender and nonbinary people display their chosen name on their banking cards, regardless of the name on their identification or birth certificate.

The Grand Prix-Winning Idea for Spotify

“Break the Sound Barrier” is a digital idea for Spotify that aims to make music streaming more inclusive to the deaf community by integrating deaf sign language performances into the platform, ensuring that music streaming is accessible to all users, regardless of their hearing ability.

By partnering with deaf performers like Miles and using deepfake technology, “Break the Sound Barrier” can scale deaf performances into over 300 sign languages for each song on the platform. This approach ensures that Spotify will be accessible to the deaf community.

The next part of their idea lets musicians choose to opt into “Break the Sound Barrier.” If a musician opts in, Spotify will generate them signing with deepfake technology. This will let musicians perform in all the world’s sign languages for the first time, bringing deaf fans closer to their favorite artists than ever before.

‘‘‘Break the Sound Barrier’ is just so simple. Real problem. Real solution. While so many agencies are trying to find ways to use deepfake and AI, this idea uses it to address a real issue. This idea also starts on the app, but I could see it extending in a number of ways [like real-life concerts]—another good sign of a huge idea,” Steinbach said.