Facebook has changed the face of media and communications and thus its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, will be honored at this year’s Cannes Lions advertising festival as its ‘Media Person of the Year’.
The prestigious award, which is usually handed out as a lifetime achievement award, will be given to the Facebook CEO in June.
Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO, said, “For Mark Zuckerberg to have created one of the internet's most dominant businesses so quickly, and to have had such a global impact on the way we all communicate with each other, is quite simply astonishing. We are delighted to honour him with this award.”
Zuckerberg said, "We are still in the early stages of our mission to build things that make the world more open and connected, so I feel honoured and humbled to receive this award in recognition of what we've accomplished so far. We will continue to innovate and push technical boundaries to create better ways for people, developers, and advertisers to connect and share on our platform."
Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony O'Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media; Tsuneo Watanabe, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings; Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner.
Meanwhile, the award follows the news that the Advertising Association has agreed a set of proposals to tighten some digital advertising practices so that they are policed by the Advertising Standards Authority in the same way as TV, press, poster and radio ads.
The new proposals mean that sites such as Facebook and Twitter will be governed by tighter controls, designed to offer more protection for children.
The extension to the ad code will ensure that all online marketing will have to be responsible, legal, honest and truthful.
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