Translating the front line of global creativity into the “next move” for Japanese companies: that is why
LENS keeps visiting Cannes Lions and holding report sessions. On September 8, 2026, we
welcomed 32 members of ITO EN Marketing Headquarters to the SCOPE office for a Cannes Lions 2026
report session, followed by a group workshop in seven teams.

LENS is the creative boutique of SCOPE Co., Ltd.

The energy of Cannes doesn’t come through in a write-up

Cannes Lions began as an advertising awards festival, but today it is a place where companies and
creators from around the world bring ideas for how creativity can move business, brands and social
issues forward. Yet the energy you feel there, and that sense of “something about this just grabs me,”
rarely comes across in a list of winners or an explainer article.
SCOPE/LENS has continued to send members to Cannes since 2019, 13 people in total. In recent
years we have deliberately sent younger members as “YOUNG LENS,” because we believe that
encountering the global front line with sensibilities close to the next generation of consumers is what
will power creativity going forward. Because we work across consumer touchpoints, from retail
and digital to PR and spaces, we can translate what we saw into the language of business: “How
could this work for your company?” Rather than keeping first-hand insights to ourselves, we want to
turn them into knowledge we can put to use together with our clients. That is why LENS continues
this initiative.

Bringing home not “what won,” but “why it moved us”

In our planning meetings, the ITO EN team raised a concern about the gap between what a
manufacturer wants to say and what actually moves consumers. What they were looking for to close
that gap was a young perspective: not a tidy summary of award winners, but the raw words of a
younger generation who had felt first-hand why an idea drew them in. So we positioned the session
not as a study session on what Cannes rewarded, but as a forum where the four YOUNG LENS
members who visited Cannes would share the moments that moved them, and where each
participant could connect those moments to their own next challenge.

Four YOUNG LENS members, in their own words

This year’s delegation was four YOUNG LENS members: two planners and two designers. Speaking
in the first person (“This is the part that gave me chills”), they introduced cases such as a brand that
used on-brand humor to turn an unexpected crisis into a participatory experience for consumers, and
a sponsor that “joined” the very world of the tournament itself. They then distilled what made these
cases compelling into eight “leaps of thinking,” such as “shift the perspective,” “shift the touchpoint”
and “shift the protagonist,” and handed them over as ways of thinking participants could start using
the very next day.
Toru Fujii of LENS, who has served on the Cannes Lions jury as Japan’s representative juror, also
took the stage. The first-hand experience of young members, combined with a perspective from
inside the jury room: being able to offer both is the strength of a LENS report session.

“Imagine what ITO EN doesn’t sell yet.”

The second half was a group workshop in seven teams. First, participants put into their own words
what made the cases that moved them during the report so good, and shared their thoughts within
their teams.
The next challenge was “Imagine what ITO EN doesn’t sell yet: new kinds of work for ITO EN that
don’t come with a barcode.” Teams combined assets ITO EN already has, such as its ties with tea
growing regions across Japan and its vending machine sales network, with someone’s “I wish this existed,”
to develop ideas not for products but for services, places, systems and experiences. LENS members
joined each team, and at the end every team presented its idea on a handwritten sheet.

100% overall satisfaction

In the post-event survey, every respondent rated their overall satisfaction as “very satisfied” or
“satisfied.” All respondents also agreed that they “gained perspectives and stimulation different from
usual,” with 74.1% choosing “strongly agree.” For the workshop, 96.2% agreed that they “were able to
think about new possibilities for ITO EN beyond being ‘a company that makes beverages.’” In
addition, 96.3% said they “would recommend it to other ITO EN colleagues,” and a majority (51.9%)
said they “would like to plan something together with LENS if the theme and opportunity are right.”

Bring this session to your own challenges.

Break down global cases into “leaps of thinking,” then combine them with the assets a company
already has. By redesigning it for each industry and challenge, we believe this program can benefit
other companies as well. LENS will expand this initiative from report sessions to workshops, and on
to co-creation projects.

Contact us about this program