India Loses Its Shine
India was touted to be the next Brazil on the creativity index when Dentsu Webchutney won the global ‘Agency of the Year’ title in 2022, an honour that came India’s way for the very first time in history at Cannes Lions, that year we brought home 47 metals. In the year that followed, we couldn’t charm as many Lions and were left with a collection of 25. But the ‘Brazil’ narrative was still strong, after all not every year can be the same, they said. But this year India dropped further touching the 2019 mark of 18 Lions. Perhaps another Brazil is in the making somewhere in the world, but is it still India? Well, the confidence certainly seemed to have waned. ‘Creativity is not just about fun and expressions’ Q: Brand loyalty has been suffering globally. Is it technology with brand experience or creativity that will play a bigger role in making consumers fall in love with brands again? Q: India is one of the fastest growing markets, globally. Will Accenture Song enter the market soon? ‘We’re trying to add a little levity to this industry’ Q: It’s interesting that you brought someone from inside to lead on a global level. In India, however, you took a different road and onboarded Dheeraj as the CEO who came from a different agency. How has bringing Dheeraj into the mix shaken things up? Q: Last time when I spoke to you, you mentioned how Cannes has become a hub for sob stories and how we need to add some fun through the campaigns. So, do you think that fun has returned to Cannes Lions this year? ‘It’s about understanding not only the brand but also the business’ Q: Heineken has been a longstanding partner for Publicis. And it’s very rare in this day and age for an agency to have a two-decade old relationship. What is the secret sauce for this successful partnership? Q: Everyone across the world is talking about artificial intelligence. According to you, is it a facilitator or a job snatcher? Jonathan Nelson Q: We’re living in a world where data means everything. There’ve been several acquisitions in the space by your competitors. And, today, somehow, we’re seeing that the focus has sort of changed from owning data to deriving insights using that data. What is Omnicom’s approach regarding that? Q: With the advent of Digital, we’re seeing campaigns becoming more transactional. It’s so much about point-of-sale or performance marketing that sometimes after the purchase, the customer doesn’t even remember the campaign or brand. Do you think that’s one flip side of Digital or is it really the future? ‘Customers are willing to leave their favourite brand because of one bad experience’ Q: Is Cannes less rewarding for CXM? Do you think there’s so much more that can be done at Cannes to bring this stream into limelight? Q: Today, there’s ample focus on brand experiences now. But to what extent do you think brand experiences have an upper hand over regular messaging now? ‘Think about work that works’ Q: What according to you makes Cannes Lions 2024 different from the previous editions of the festival? Q: As someone who spent 16 years in various roles at Saatchi, what would your advice be to both the Indian CCOs and for Paritosh Srivastava, the CEO? ‘Creativity is such a powerful tool that we CONSTANTLY WANT TO FIND ways to get straight to that’ Q: You spent a good number of years at McCann and then you moved to byTheNetwork. What was the biggest difference you saw between the two? ‘Locations don’t matter now’ Q: Unlike other agencies that have their headquarters in New York or Paris or London, Cheil is very differently placed. It’s headquartered in Asia. While all the other network agencies are looking at Asia as the booming market, do you feel you are in a better position because it’s your home market? Q: Cheil has been known as Samsung’s agency for years, but you also have a big roster of clients outside of Samsung. As Cannes is about brave work, I want to know which are the clients other than Samsung that you find brave and would like to work with? "Fit My Feet weaves threads of compassion along with innovation for individuals affected by clubfoot and India’s cobbler community. We at McCann India worked closely with the Indian brand Buckaroo, who in its ethos, carries the vision of revolutionising footwear. It’s great that we could come up with this initiative to transform the lifestyles of the ones whose specific needs are largely ignored. Our compassion driven and design-led idea helps uplift individuals with clubfoot while also providing a new commerce stream to the cobbler community of India. And ‘Dabba Savings Account’ turned the humble rice Dabba in the kitchen into a more solid and safer tech extension, making it a beacon of hope and empowerment. This initiative not only promotes structured financial planning but also harnesses the full potential of India’s tech revolution and enhances the reach of financial services across the nation. It represents a significant stride towards empowering women economically and nurturing a more inclusive society.” "Our journey has been marked by profound experiences with noble organisations, where our teams immersed themselves in understanding their missions and challenges. This deep engagement has fueled our creation of powerful, heart-tugging campaigns that resonate globally. For instance, ‘The Impossible Choice’ not only earned us a Lion but also symbolised our commitment to meaningful storytelling after spending quality time with St Jude India. Our work on ‘Taj Mahal Megh Santoor’ for HUL, celebrating Indian classical music, is a wonderful example of how a brand can come alive creatively in a unique way while staying true to its core values. ‘Vodafone’s Vi Dabbawalas’ is so deeply rooted in our culture and Mumbai city, and ‘5 Star Cancel Valentine’s Day’ is such a brave idea. This recognition is the bravery of our teams and clients being rewarded. We want to thank each and every person in our teams, the clients, and other agencies involved in the process of creating these pieces.” "It feels amazing to be recognised for a piece of work that has created a dent in culture. There are billions of people grooving to ‘Khalasi’ and now we are holding 2 big metal lions in hand. In PR, it’s a Gold considering there were no Golds given in the category. This is for the team that is putting in the hours and doing some amazing work on the brand. This is for our clients at The Coca Cola Company who dream big, push hard and make epic things happen.” "We tried to push the boundaries of the way montage is viewed in India with experimental imagery and sound. We would like to commend Venkatesh Jindal, Kondurkar Studio and every member of the team for wholeheartedly supporting and sharing our vision.” "It feels good when your biggest pieces of work win for the biggest brands on the biggest stage! I am proud of our partnership with PepsiCo and Mondelez. The ‘Gatorade Turf Finder’ is everything that Leo Burnett believes in – using new-age technology and data to solve ‘real’ problems and make a ‘real’ impact. And winning The Glass Lion for Change is without doubt one of the most special Lions to be bringing home. Lays’ ‘Project Farm Equal’ solves design solution disparities and makes farming a level playing field for both sexes – a pivotal point for the agriculture industry. On the other hand, Effectiveness is the tiger’s category as you have to win two years in a row. Our partnership with Mondelez made this happen with #BringBack2011.” "This is a great validation for the work we are doing for HDFC Bank over the years. This is a long running platform that FCB Kinnect has built for fraud prevention. I am so happy because this is real work for a large brand. Big congratulations to our teams and clients who’ve made this possible.” "The Glass lion is very prestigious. While other categories have hundreds of shortlists, this one had 17 in hundreds. We were super nervous but this win today has just made us realise the value of our win because it proves that if you’re happy with what you do, you do it well. We’re truly overwhelmed today. We’re the first independent agency in India to win our first Silver Lion in the extremely rare Glass for Change category before even completing our first year. We are grateful to our clients for having us on this as partners. This means the world to us. Our hearts are full.”
This is one of India’s worst performances in the past 10 years at Cannes, second only to 2015 when we scored 13 Lions. But what exactly went wrong?
Industry veteran Piyush Pandey says, “Some years can be like this when there aren’t too many big campaigns and we are left with just stray pieces of work which pick one metal here and there. We need that one campaign that shapes up beautifully across a bevy of categories, that’s where the numbers get made. We need to get past blaming the jury for lack of understanding of our cultural nuances, we didn’t complain when the jury awarded Savlon or the Shahrukh Khan campaign, did we? Can any of us think of that one big ticket campaign that could have won this year for us but didn’t? The answer is ’no’. Of course, some of the things could have been better with regard to the colour of the metal received like for Ogilvy’s ‘Megh Santoor’ campaign but then that is subjective. So a global jury is not the problem.”
He also goes on to slam ‘meaningless and idealess’ celebrity campaigns. Pandey explains, “Between clients and agencies if you keep creating such campaigns, where unfortunately the most spends are going, it is hardly possible to rise and shine as an industry. It is very important to have a future where there is a creative expectation on the part of clients and creative thinking on the part of agencies.”
Other stalwarts feel judging India’s creativity based on what transpired at one award festival like Cannes Lions would be unfair. Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, McCann Asia Pacific & CEO and Chief Creative Officer McCann India explains, “When we talk about creative work, we should not talk so much about numbers or metals won. It’s great to win, but one award show can’t decide the future of India’s creativity, the country is too big, and content is being created at every corner today be it via influencers or vloggers. Indian creativity is actually throbbing right now. We are in the best of times for creativity because it’s so democratized.”
India sent 826 entries to Cannes Lions this year out of which 59 were shortlisted and 18 brought home a metal. While the number of entries we sent compared to last year was higher, we definitely had far lesser shortlists. The entry to shortlist ratio stood at 6.78% compared to last year’s 9.53%. Similarly, entry to win ratio is 2.18% compared to 3.09% of 2023.
Talking about India’s entries, Josy Paul, Chairman and CCO, BBDO India says, “We’ve got to be a bit mindful when we look at the tally and play the number game - the work should not end up just being some unfortunate statistic. Look at the ideas that won – they were human, tech, scale, and connected. Congratulations to the Indian agencies who won metals at Cannes Lions this year. More than 10 unique ideas from India were celebrated at Cannes, across various different categories. That’s outstanding!”
We definitely had some surprises this year, Aalap Desai’s Tgthr won a Glass Lion- Silver in the very first year of the agency’s inception for Harpic’s ‘Loocator’ campaign. Like last year, Leo Burnett was the agency that took home the most number of metals i.e. five. Ogilvy bagged four metals and McCann which didn’t win a single Lion in 2023 made a comeback this year with 3 metals. FCB which has had a great Cannes Lions run in the past 5 years however slowed down this time, scoring only a Silver Lion. VML won 2 and so did Early Man Films. Dentsu and DDB Mudra, while they had received some shortlists, failed to see any conversions.
We missed the presence of that one strong campaign that sweeps metals in multiple categories like how Dentsu’s ‘The Unfiltered History Tour’ did in 2022 or McCann’s ‘Immunity Charm’ did in 2017 which were the years when India scored the highest, incidentally also the only two years when the metal tally touched 40.
Josy Paul explains, “Agree that our performance, relative to the past few years, was a bit low. But then every country has a good year or a not-so-good year! That’s the nature of creativity. And if we were forced to reflect, and think a bit deeper, maybe we should start by asking a few questions. One, is there a sameness creeping into all our work? Two, have we become a bit too serious? Three, is there a shelf life to some world saving ideas? Four, we can see that humour is making a comeback at Cannes Lions. Maybe it’s a reaction to the depressing news all around the world. Five, perhaps, the jury wants advertising to be happy.”
India won a Lion in 12 categories including Creative Data and Health Lions in which Leo Burnett and McCann struck Gold for Gatorade ‘Turf Finder’ and Buckaroo ‘Fit my Feet’, respectively. There were ten categories where India failed to get a shortlist including the inaugural Luxury and Lifestyle Lions; and 8 categories where our shortlist didn’t convert.
Dheeraj Sinha however is still positive, The CEO of FCB Group India and South Asia says, “I think India is on a definite rising curve. It’s hard to measure the trend on a year-to-year basis. It takes long cycles of time to create great work. I would see this as a twenty four to thirty six month trend and on that, we are a rising curve. I don’t worry too much about a bit down and a bit up on a year-to-year basis.”
A different perspective comes from Shrenik Gandhi, CEO, White Rivers Media whose agency had entered the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for the second time. He says, “Indian entries weren’t bad. Others were better. Indian advertising community should scale up the number of entries being submitted in the event. Indian entries were about 3% of the total count. For the advertising community of our size and the great work being done in the country, just 800 odd entries doesn’t cut through at such global stage. While we must focus on curating a better bottom funnel by scaling up the quality, there must be a curation of scaling the top funnel by increasing the number of entries, to eventually have better number of entries. Having said that, for better cultural understanding there must be a scaled representation of the Asian and Indian community in the jury process.”
On a whole at a festival level, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, 2024 saw participation by 12000 delegates, 350+ brands, from 97 countries. It also saw a grand come back of humour as an emotion. Some of the biggest campaigns that won like ‘What The Fast’, ‘The Last Barf Bag’, ‘Not Mayo’, and many others used humour effectively. Not surprisingly, AI was the hot topic of discussion inside and outside the Palais. However, what was interesting is that this year there was a compulsory question for all entries at the festival, on whether the campaign has in any way taken support of AI. As per statistics, more than 12 percent of the entries received ticked the box, making it evident that the trend is here to stay.
CEO, Accenture Song
They are one and the same, not mutually exclusive to each other. There is going to be a premium for brand experience, because that has a bigger effect on people’s relationships with brands. I don’t think people love their brands because of the message or an advertising campaign. A lot of it is about awareness, and not about relationship. Relationship comes from experiences, whether it is online experience, influencer experience, shopping experience. There has to be creativity in all of those, not just efficiencies. We want to make things smooth, rewarding, and as efficient as possible. But creativity is not just about fun and expressions, creativity is about thoughtfulness, design, and restraint. So, I think they are the same thing.
We want to do it the right way. Accenture has a massive presence in India, and Song will have a bigger presence there, hopefully. Then again, it comes down to doing it for the right reasons with the right people. I don’t want us to barge in with any assumptions that we are going to be successful there because we are successful everywhere else. When we show up, we want to be sure that we can show up and deliver for our clients, because expectations are very high from Song.
Global Chair, FCB and Creative Advisor, IPG
It’s interesting because Rohit, Dheeraj’s predecessor, wanted to do something different and he brought about the change we saw at FCB in the past few years. With Dheeraj, I found it exceptional what he did at Leo Burnett, and when we chatted, he had that energy and space to go to the next level. When we looked at India, it seemed like there was space for somebody to bring a point of view in. The key thing here was to get him acquainted with our fundamentals at FCB. The network works together. We know each other and care about each other. So, we needed to make sure that he felt that way. He has a great competitive spirit which is what India needs right now, to go to the next level.
A little bit. We just won a Grand Prix for Dramamine’s ‘The Last Barf Bag’. I would say that we’re trying to add a little levity to this industry. Maybe it’s a good thing that we get seduced by nice and helpful people. But personally, a lot of the time, I don’t think that’s our job. I get worried sometimes when we get into– ‘We figured out how to solve climate change’ thing. When in actuality, there are brilliant people who haven’t figured this out yet. It’s not that we shouldn’t be doing that kind of work, but I don’t think that’s what our real job is. Our job is to move the economy, grow businesses and bring innovations. We sell products and services and we build brands, we should continue doing that. I agree that when you are making a decision, you make it with your heart and if you believe a company is doing good things in the world, there’s a good chance that it moves your heart a little bit more, but we have to be balanced about it. And don’t forget that we also have fun.
Global CEO, LePub & CCO, Publicis Worldwide
It’s about understanding not only the brand but also the business, therefore, we always try to identify and solve business issues. The communication solutions that we bring to the table are problem solvers to the business part. We go from market to market, with focus on big markets. We have Le Pub in Brazil as it’s one of the biggest markets, and now we also have it in Singapore for APAC. I am sure India will be a key market for Heineken in the coming years. Let’s see what will happen in India.
Basically, it’s a tool, just like post-production. It’s all about understanding the technicalities to brief it correctly. It depends on how good we are at briefing the AI. AI won’t steal our jobs, but will help us go faster about things, in presentations as well as content production. I would advise the young creatives to specialise in AI because that will be required by the agencies. Currently, we don’t have many creatives who can work with AI.
CEO, Omnicom Digital
At Omnicom, we’re sitting on more data than anybody else, at least on the buy side of the relationship. Whether that’s first-party data, second-party data or transactional data. We have many tens of petabytes of data, but data is just a means to an end. In the end, it’s about what you do with it, the insights you drive from it, and ultimately the outcome of it.
As you move through life, you’re bombarded by marketing messages. These messages tend to be very brief but they do have an impact, particularly if they’re tailored for you. We’re about to go through a creative revolution, where we talk about mass personalisation scale and where the advertising moulds who you are and what you want. While the messages may be fleeting, the purchase is not. The payoff is when you actually buy the product, you experience the product and hopefully return again, recommending the product to your friends. The most powerful type of marketing is when you buy something, it fills the need that you have, and you go back to repurchase it and hopefully become a customer for life.
Global CXM Practice Lead, Dentsu
I agree with you. Primarily, it flagged off as the Festival of Creativity, but now has transformed into a media event. Today, media might have become bigger than creativity. But, over the last couple of years, several companies have started focusing on customer experience. Our partners like Adobe and Salesforce and Snowflake are showing up in a big way. I think customer experience and advertising will continue to blend. Since the consumers demand that integrated journey, companies are going to be forced to find ways to integrate it all. Therefore, this event will become about CXM as well.
Both of these are important. It’s important to reach the right customers with your message, and to find ways to stay relevant, making sure they understand that you fit into their lives. I am biased, but I think that customer journey is also massively important. Customers are willing to leave their favourite brand because of one bad experience. These days, it’s very difficult for brands because it’s no longer just about getting an ad out there, it’s also about delivering a great experience in commerce. We have to support the customer with customer service, and join the offline experience with online experience.
Chairperson & Global CCO, Saatchi and Saatchi
I believe that it is as much about what is going on in the Palais as what’s happening outside of the Palais. One can sense the resurgence of the media here. With the introduction of so many platforms, we will see a real presence there. I also feel that, in comparison to previous years, the organisers are more actively engaged in creative discussions. I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing, but this year feels very business-like.
My advice to all would be to think about work that works. This year, we are seeing a reaction to the overly purpose-led work winning big last year. Which has caused a resurgence of people really wanting to reward hard working projects. Again, everyone ran towards AI, and while AI is omnipresent, it’s not the beginning or the end of an idea. It’s not an idea in itself, but a way of bringing work to life. It’s a way of us becoming more efficient in our production and our data. We are seeing an end to that, and AI is being used in the process of making work, which is really exciting.
Creative Chair, By The Network
Having been part of both the worlds, I think, at the core, we do the same thing– solve business problems creatively. The structure of the two, however, is very different. Primary difference being that byTheNetwork is made up 100% of independent agencies that are owned by creative people. This not only puts creative at the core, but creative people at the core. I have always believed that to achieve great work, one should shorten the distance between the client and problem-solver. At By The Network, the first person you talk to is going to solve your problem and work on it. There is something fundamental that happens when the only decision makers in the network are creative people. I think the best agencies have always been owned and run by creatives. Not that the big holding company proposition is wrong, but what we believe is creativity is such a powerful tool that we constantly want to find ways to get straight to that. This way it is more seamless, efficient, cheaper, quicker and devoid of organisational layers. Furthermore, there is a certain level of freedom involved with creative agencies, be it for the people working for the agencies or the clients. We have always had great independent agencies, and they are growing constantly. Working in a big network often means choosing between diverse opportunities and independent creativity, but our new model combines both. We offer the freedom to explore new ideas within a cooperative structure, allowing access to various specialties and global markets without a top-down hierarchy. The best work emerges from collaboration and multiple perspectives, creating a unique and innovative environment.
Global Creative Director, Cheil Worldwide
I think location mattered when I was at a junior level, but everything has changed after COVID. Now, we can work from home, and Zoom meetings have become a new norm. Back in those days, it was super hard to study about other countries and their cultures and one had to go there. But the world is connected much closer than ever before, so the locations don’t matter now.
It’s an honour for me to work with Samsung and our other clients. One doesn’t get many chances to work with such big names that spend so much money on new products as well as on the content around it. But if you ask me about our bravest client, I think it would be Kundal. I spent over five years finding a client for ‘The Pink Glove’ campaign and met a few big beauty labels in Korea, but it wasn’t picked up as we live in a conservative society. When I took this idea to other clients, most of the people in the meetings were males and couldn’t understand the seriousness of the issue. But when I met the team Kundal, there were four women in the meeting room. And right after listening to the idea, they gave it a nod. Their decision made this campaign possible, which eventually changed the conversation and now we are openly conversing about breast cancer.
Chairman, McCann Asia Pacific & CEO and CCO, McCann Worldgroup India
Joint CCOs, Ogilvy
CCO, VML
Director, Early Man Films
CCO & CEO, Leo Burnett, South Asia & India, and Chairman, Creative Council, Publicis Groupe - South Asia
Group CEO, FCB Group India & South Asia
Co-founder & CCO, Tgthr
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