Lions parent company to acquire The Effies

Ascential plc, the parent company of Cannes Lions, has reached an agreement to acquire Effie, which produces The Effie Awards around the world. 

Subject to regulatory approval, Effie will become part of Ascential’s Lions Division, which will also create a new “The Effie Lions Foundation, Inc.” offering  “training for all marketing students, especially those under-represented in the marketing community.”

“The coming together of Lions and Effie is a powerful testament to the fact that effectiveness and creativity in marketing are inextricably linked,” said Ascential CEO Philip Thomas in the release announcing the deal.  (Ascential was itself acquired by Informa last month.) “All enlightened businesses know that creative, effective marketing drives growth.”

While the Cannes Lions was long known for its emphasis on commercial creativity and originality above all else, it has made efforts to more strongly connect creativity to business results in recent years, including launching the Creative Effectiveness Lions in 2011. 

Meanwhile, the Effies were launched with a singular emphasis on marketing effectiveness, and today provides insights from 125 markets around the world, running awards programs and offering tools and training. 

“Closer collaboration between Effie, as the definitive marketing effectiveness benchmark globally, and the Lions brands is an exciting prospect for the industry as our ability to share insights and find synergies in our data will help to dissect the role creativity plays in driving marketing effectiveness overall,” said Traci Alford, president and CEO, Effie Worldwide. “Together we will be able to better understand the key drivers of growth and ultimately help all businesses succeed.”

Asked about the future of the Effie Awards, a spokesperson for Cannes Lions / Ascential confirmed that the Effie brand will remain.

“Effie is a heritage brand that launched in 1968; the strength of the Effie brand is one of the many reasons we were so passionate about acquiring it,” they said. “In terms of integration, we will be looking to build connections across our teams to ensure our customers benefit from all of our collective expertise across events, insights and advisory.”