Cannes Lions: Creative Business Transformation winners 2023 /

Today Microsoft 365 and McCann New York were awarded the Cannes Lions Creative Business Transformation Grand Prix for the ADLaM (An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture) campaign, which converted Pulaar, the language of the Fulani people of West Africa, into display fonts, to enable people to use the alphabet to communicate on social media platforms.

Despite being spoken by 40 million people, Pulaar is at risk of extinction because it wasn’t available to use on digital platforms – such as social media, which is now the most important means of communication for the Fulani people. Thanks to the work of two Fulani brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, who created the Fulani alphabet 30 years ago, Microsoft was able to convert the text font into digital displays.

The acronym ADLaM uses the alphabet’s first four letters and stands for Alkule Dandayɗe Leñol Mulugol (‘the alphabet that protects the people from vanishing’). The team also created a series of typographic artworks, which are a further expression of Fulani visual culture, all of which are free to download and share.

Jury president Justin Peyton, who is also the chief transformation officer at Wunderman Thompson APAC, commented that the Grand Prix winner also won in the Design category earlier in the week. ‘On the surface it may appear to be a beautiful set of designs, but actually what it really showed to us was how an idea like that could connect to [...] a marginalised culture and people, to empower them to create their own businesses within that culture,’ said Peyton.

Peyton said that the campaign also won because, ‘Microsoft systemised the process of building that language of understanding so they could go and speak to other marginalised groups where language is an issue, and connect them to the modern world – opening up opportunities for those to do business more broadly within their own communities. This to me was truly transformational. Not just for Microsoft, but for those entire communities.’

Gold Lions Winners / 

Well-being Index, for Nikkei Inc, by Dentsu Inc, Tokyo

Renault Plug-Inn, for Renault, by Publicis Conseil, Paris