About us

The idea for the Luum Awards came together during the pandemic, inspired by the acts of solidarity seen around the world at that time. The festival organizers created the Luum Awards to recognize the creative works that are promoting a better world, firmly believing in the power of communicators to serve as global change agents.

To promote this goal, we put together a team of first-rate judges every year, made up of leaders of NGOs, brands, and advertising agencies, to evaluate creative and strategic pieces that promote messages related to making the world a better place.

We are the first global creative festival to go zero-paper. Additionally, since 2024, we have held our events in host cities other than Switzerland, where the festival is registered, choosing instead to host our events in the Global South, where we can help communities in need with investment and social/environmental volunteer efforts. You can help us, by becoming a volunteer!

When you participate in Luum you help us support in-need communities. For example, in 2024, we hosted an event in Peru’s Sacred Valley, which resulted in USD $60,000 in direct and indirect investments entering the local economy in a primarily impoverished indigenous region of Peru.

7 Things that Make us Unique

In the search for the best, we propose a unique format that conveys the competitive but just essence of the festival:

1. Only Gold: Luum only awards Gold medals, there are no second or third place awards. That is to say that the festival only awards medals to the best of the best.

2. Free Registration: Entry registration is free and only winners pay award rights (only gold).

3. Equality: There are no jury presidents, no academic hierarchies. All the judges are top-tier and their evaluations are made at different times during the judging period.

4. Democratic: All participants, regardless of size, brand or nationality, are given the same amount of opportunities to upload their entries at no cost: 4.

5. Fairness: Luum meets gender quotas: 50% of the judges are men and 50% of the judges are women.

6. Diversity: The judges panel is composed primarily of talented global advertising and marketing professionals from well-known associations and communities, however, governmental and non-governmental entities may also participate.

7. Luum Awards is the only festival in the world to reward messages of social, environmental and animal rights awareness.

Meet the juries 2025

We are convinced that creative communications can help us make the world a better place. We CAN be global change agents! To achieve this, we have assembled a first-rate team of festival judges, made up of leaders from NGOs, advertising companies, and creative agencies from around the world.

Lukas Calderón

General Creative Director | el taier DDB Centro, Guatemala

Caren Spigland

Creative Director | Eversana Intouch, USA

 I work out of the Chicago office and this photo shows me in high-school, where I was Editor-In-Chief of The Mt. Vernon Knight News 

 

Evan Dunn

Executive Creative Director | AKQA, Netherlands

Ricardo Mendoza

CCO | Ogilvy, Guatemala

Colombian creative.
He has worked across more than 20 categories and developed campaigns for 66 different brands throughout Latin America.
He has lived in Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, and Guatemala, serving as the creative lead at Leo Burnett, DDB, McCann, and now Ogilvy.

With 126 awards, he has been recognized at Cannes, One Show, Clio, New York Festival, San Sebastián, El Ojo de Iberoamérica, FIAP, among others.
He has served as a juror multiple times for the New York Festival, Annual Creativepool, El Ojo de Iberoamérica, El Sol, FIAP, Young Lions, and various local festivals across different countries.

El Ojo de Iberoamérica has named him the Best Creative in Central America and the Caribbean on two occasions.

Elizabeth Valleau

Executive Creative Director | Accenture Song, UK

With over 20 years of leading world-class creative, design, and technology teams, Elizabeth Valleau is currently the Executive Creative Director and founding leader of Accenture Song’s New Realities team, which is focused on transforming culture, communication and business by applying essential new technology experiences. She serves as an industry thought leader and maker in the areas of gen ai, immersive experiences, and digital identity, always through the lens of culture. She came to Accenture Song after seven years as Global Creative Lead at Meta where she build products and campaigns that pushed both culture and innovation, creating groundbreaking campaigns and partnerships with LVMH, SXSW, Coachella, Pepsico, The Tate, and adidas. She also lead R&D for the AR features across Meta platforms, as well as the Orion glasses

and Neurolink.Elizabeth has built her career creating sea-changes inside of global creative agencies and brands. She’s lead teams to create new products used by billions of people, and creative campaigns that have won the industries highest awards. She’s served on startup advisory boards, lead mentorship groups for Women in STEM, and given keynote speeches on the worlds most prestigous stages such as The ADC, CES, The United Nations and Cannes.