Tor Myhren, vice president – marketing communications, Apple, kicked off the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2025, discussing how creativity is hardwired into the brand, right from its strategic leadership to how it connects with consumers.

Apple will be awarded ‘Creative Marketer of the Year’ later during the five-day festival, the second time it’s won the accolade. 

Myhren started by making a case for human creativity.

“It’s been a hallmark of Apple’s advertising and marketing for decades. But creativity is changing fast. Machines are working, and algorithms are making decisions for us because they are highly logical. But logic isn’t the best way to connect with the consumer. Consumers have to feel something and people are better at doing that than machines. I don’t believe predictions like 95% of the industry will be dying soon,” he said. 

However, Myhren didn’t dismiss the role of AI.

“AI is mindblowing, revolutionary, and the most exciting tool we have seen in our lifetime. It’s going to radically disrupt every major industry including advertising and is doing it already. In this time of big change and big fear I’ve got good and bad news,” he stated.

The good news he revealed was that AI isn’t going to kill advertising. The bad news was that AI won’t save advertising either - the onus, he stated, is on the industry itself to do that through human creativity

He went on to share some of his favourite ideas Apple released and how the added level of human touch made it special. 

Accessibility

Talking about how Apple’s AirPods can now help people with hearing disabilities, Myhren said, “Apple has helped with accessibility. It’s designing products everyone can use regardless of their ability and disability. We used the best-selling audio product (Airpods) and took about four years to create this. People don’t need to take expensive hearing aids and hearing tests and can impact 1.4 billion people. And this can only be done when one works with heart and brain together,” he said.

He added, “Google had their highest search volume for hearing aids a week after the launch of the ad’s release. It’s making a difference. The mere compass of Apple is very comforting in eras machines are making more decisions for companies. The ad opens with seconds of muffled sounds and the data wouldn’t have allowed us to run that. But it was the most-watched Apple holiday ad.”

Privacy

Myhren stated how Apple believes that privacy is a human right. 

“When we started this campaign, some believed it was risky. But we ignited conversations around privacy. This year, we rolled out a campaign for Safari about how it’s private. Others state they are private, but that’s questionable,” explained Myhren about the reason for the campaign.

He added, “That’s a pretty creepy ad but I love it and it became popular. It’s because of the insight being so human. The execution is pretty human too. These devices were imagined by people and designed by them. Craft matters and it’s a very Apple thing.”

Immersive

Myhren went on to talk about how Apple is ‘tackling a very different form of storytelling' this year. 

“VR has always been there and takes one to places they haven’t been able to go. But people get bored in a few minutes of using this technology. With Apple Vision Pro, it’s more intimate. Inside the crazy technology, we have a human experience,” he added.

He added that the brand has made music videos with bands like Metallica and The Weeknd, and the experience is better than being in the ‘front row’.

Keeping it real

With the example of how Apple TV+ rolled out a campaign for the second season of Severance, he explained the importance of keeping it real.

“These activations help keep it real. People crave human interactions. The actors were offering a real tangible experience. It was created with the human brain,” he said.

Adding to this point, he spoke about the ‘Shot on iPhone’ campaign which is completing 10 years this year.

“It’s a decade of showing human creativity. The first time we rolled this out it was for the iPhone 6. We have an Instagram handle devoted to showing these pictures and it’s flooded with photos and videos of human creativity. We started shooting ads, short films and music videos on the iPhone,” he added.

He also went on to reveal how the brand values its app developers - one he labelled to be the most important community for them.

He ended the talk by giving a shoutout to the brand’s agency partners – TBWA\ Media Arts Lab and OMD.

“They have been such awesome partners for the last 28 years. We need more of those long-term partnerships. The brand and agencies need to define what creativity looks like in the future. It’s thrilling,” he signed off.