LIONS GOOD NEWS was initiated in 2020 by the Cannes Lions Japan representative as a response to the festival’s first-ever cancellation. The concept is “NEW THINGS CAN COME FROM HISTORY.” In the face of the ever-evolving communication landscape reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, we sift through the extensive Cannes Lions archives to present fresh solutions to contemporary challenges. LIONS GOOD NEWS 2024 tackles the specific issue of diminished social interactions, a concern highlighted by our recent survey. While advertisement is often compared to writing love letters, the modalities of making new acquaintances have evolved in the same way that traditional letters have given way to emails and other modern communication forms. Our mission is to explore and demonstrate how to foster new meetings, drawing on historical and contemporary archives. This initiative aims to guide the creation of new meetings in a changing world.

LIONS GOOD NEWS, addressing the 'lack of meetings' identified in our survey, is a 300,000-word guidebook available both on a microsite and in print. It revolves around the theme of a flower, universally symbolic of meetings, its language, and the love letters that embody this meaning. The microsite, intricately designed with illustrations and WebGL, showcases details like petal curves and color overlaps, symbolizing meetings. The concurrently released book is crafted from durable Japanese washi paper, enhancing the floral motifs and their descriptions. Additionally, the manuscripts for the book underwent machine learning to organize Cannes Lions case studies systematically. This innovative approach has created entirely new opportunities for meeting and learning, enriching the experiences offered by both the website and the book.

Launched in 2020, LIONS GOOD NEWS is centered on the idea that new solutions are found in history. It explores the dynamic interplay between past and present as key to innovating PR strategies. This guidebook not only delves into historical and future archives but also integrates discussion-provoking elements like illustrations and WebGL, Japanese washi paper and AI, and collaboration between companies, organizations, and media. By incorporating active communication forums (monthly seminars), the project aims to foster ideas and learning opportunities for communities. This approach addresses the project's challenge, the 'lack of meetings,' by creating a platform for dialogue and exchange.

The microsite beautifully illustrates how engaging with the Cannes Lions archives can lead to unprecedented meetings, akin to individual petals coming together to form a single flower. The site's design, featuring gentle flower curves and overlapping petal colors rendered in WebGL, was meticulously refined to ensure visual appeal even when petals are viewed separately. This digital space also explores the coexistence of contrasts like fragility and strength, past and present, under the theme of love letters that symbolize these flowers and their language.

Visitors spend an average of over 2 hours on the site, which has garnered numerous digital craft awards, including FWA, Awwwards, and CSS Design Award. Complementing the microsite, a book was crafted using traditional Japanese paper, ideal for showcasing the texture of illustrated flowers, their language, and love letters. Upon release, it achieved high rankings on Amazon.com.

The book uniquely combines advanced Large Language Models (LLM) with traditional paper, a collaboration with Japan's leading university AI venture. It analyzes over 300,000 words from written manuscripts to generate completely new meetings and learning experiences from the featured works.

These series of contents not only were provided to companies and NPOs participating in the survey but also generated completely new meetings and learning opportunities through the works featured on the site and in the book. Furthermore, regular lectures utilizing these contents were organized, involving corporations, NPOs, and the media, successfully mobilizing over 3,000 people. The project achieved great success, earning endorsements and praise from various entities.

Upon release, editors-in-chief from Wired, Forbes, and other outlets lauded the guidebook. Wired especially praised it as presenting key societal values in a unique manner, consistent with Cannes Lions' mission. The microsite, celebrated for its UI/UX, kept users engaged for over two hours on average and won numerous digital craft awards including FWA, Awwwards, and CSS Design Award. The book, ranking high on Amazon, provided extensive learning opportunities about current issues. Furthermore, Regular lectures using these contents, involving companies, NPOs, and the media, have attracted over 3,000 participants, with over 80% finding solutions to their current challenges. Companies and NPOs have expressed gratitude for this initiative. Notably, WWF has praised it as a wonderful effort that has created new meetings and effectively utilized the archives.