It’s hard to escape the stream of tweets, images, videos and news stories emerging from the annual Cannes Lions Festival this year. We’ve loved checking out the live stream and following all the news on Twitter- so which have been our favourite talking points?

It was great to see that Apple had taken the top spot in Cannes’ “Outdoor” category for its wonderful “Shot on iPhone 6” campaign. This has got to be one of our favourite campaigns we’ve seen in recent years, for capturing some of the most incredible shots from around the world. The tech giant crowd-sourced around 10,000 images from iPhone 6 users, displayed throughout 75 cities and 25 countries globally. Apple contacted the 162 users involved via Flickr and Instagram in order to display their photos in TV ads, print, and outdoor billboards. And there was another landmark for Apple at this year’s festival, with the iWatch being debuted in order to conduct event research. 100 attendees participated in the trial, which saw each one wearing an iWatch, with data being gathered on heart rate, location and movement from across 20 million data points around the site. The research was then taken and presented yesterday at a session called “The Pulse of Cannes”, in which findings on engagement, energy and emotion were revealed.

We were also proud to see the UK win the most awards in the Cannes Lions “Glass” category, a new accolade which celebrates campaigns that challenge or address gender assumptions. One of the winners was the #Likeagirl campaign from Leo Burnett, which takes on the typically used phrase, transforming it from its derogative connotation, to something that denotes female power, strength, prowess and intelligence. The video campaign, created for Proctor and Gamble and Always, was certainly one of the most memorable from last year, going viral with over 54 million YouTube views and 30 million other site views. In addition, FCB Inferno’s “This Girl Can” campaign also scooped a prestigious award, portraying a similar message, and encouraging girls to use their physical and mental strength to exercise and compete in sports activities.

Kim Kardashian aside, one of the most interesting talks to watch came from Snapchat’s CEO, Evan Spiegel. The entrepreneur discussed his app, advertising, and plans for the future, on the festival’s main stage at the Palais. Beginning with Snapchat’s humble roots in a Stanford dorm room, to how the app revolutionized social content and communication for brands and users, Spiegel’s talk was informative and enlightening. And of course advertising was one of the main points up for discussion, with new products in the pipeline that will enable brands to post sponsored videos and sponsored location-based filters than users can apply to their images. The Snapchat CEO admitted that bad or overly targeted advertising is a pet-peeve, so stated that the app would instead focus on serving relevant advertising, promising user privacy while still enabling advertisers to reach audiences.

Did you attend Cannes Lions this year or been keeping up to date with the Festival’s news? What have been your highlights from the event? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.