MAM
Titanium Lion award added to 2003 Cannes Lions ad fest
NEW YORK: The advertising industry’s most coveted awards’ committee has introduced a new award to honour innovation. The Titanium Lion will be added to this year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival to be held between 16-22 June 2003.
Ad agency Wieden & Kennedy chairman Dan Wieden, who is also the president of this year’s film and print and posters juries at the Cannes festival, was behind the creation of the Titanium Lion. Wieden and the respective presidents of the media, direct and cyber juries will chose the winner of the Titanium Lion by majority vote.
The award will be given each year to provocative work “in any category, or any combination of categories, that causes the industry to stop in its tracks and reconsider the way forward”. An adage report says that the new prize was created at least in part over how difficult it is to award groundbreaking work like the BMW Films campaign that doesn’t fit neatly into a single category.
BMW Films swept award shows in the US and around the world last year and was considered by Cannes juries for film, media and cyber Lions but won only in the cyber category, which prompted widespread criticism by those in the ad industry.
In an earlier interview with Advertising Age, Wieden had indicated he will look for ads that point the way to advertising’s future, seeking out work with “a sign of where things could be going, the antenna to indicate a new landscape. I hope that’s what we can focus on.”
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
