The missing piece: Why India needs more marketers to attend Cannes Lions

New Delhi: Known as the Oscars of the advertising world, the Cannes Lions celebrate the best global creative work in advertising. While India’s advertising leaders have long been a fixture at the festival, the growing tribe of Indian marketers joining the fray is truly energising.

Last year, Cannes Lions saw the presence of marketers like Nitin Saini from Mondelez, Rajeev Jain from DS Group, Amit Doshi from Britannia, ​​Karandeep Singh Kapany from Duolingo, and Tarun Bhagat from PepsiCo, among others. 

Indian advertising leaders see the growing number of marketers at Cannes Lions as a promising sign. This trend, they told BestMediaInfo.com, is a positive development for the industry.

They believe this exposure to world-class creativity will significantly enhance India’s creative standards as marketers gain firsthand experience of global excellence. After all, it is the marketer, as the final decision-maker, who ultimately drives the next game-changing advertising move.

“Go to Cannes because it stops you from being cocky,” said Sukesh Kumar Nayak, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy, emphasising that sometimes you don't realise what you're missing until you see and feel it firsthand.

For someone who has been in the business for two decades, this reality check is essential, inspiring, and humbling, showing there's always room for improvement.

Nayak added, “The annual trip to Cannes Lions serves as a reality check, reminding me there's always more to learn, keeping me from becoming overconfident or cocky. Beyond meeting friends and having a great time, it truly pushed him to consider what more he could achieve.” 

Nayak also brought in the example of a marketer from P&G and said, “One year, the global head of marketing at P&G mentioned that five years ago, he was sitting in the audience at Cannes and realised that despite spending billions of dollars, none of his work was being showcased there. He returned to his office and asked the country heads if they could dedicate just 5% of their efforts to improving their work. As a result, they produced back-to-back successful campaigns. 

Cannes isn’t just a festival—it’s a playground for bold ideas and a challenge to the status quo. Witnessing world-class creativity up close often plants the seeds for breakthrough campaigns back home. 

Adding to Nayak, Pragati Rana, Head of Originals, Regional Creative Officer - West, and Founding Partner at tgthr, said, “Marketers feel safe in the comfortable. Cannes Lions can show them that there’s more safety in finding new ways to be effective, new ways to tell a story, and new ways to solve a problem in the new world than sticking to the tried and tested.”

Shedding light on her experience at the festival, Rana said, “I’ve been to Cannes twice. Both times, it’s been nothing but mind-blowing. There’s always so much to learn and so much to see. It fills you with fire, creates a hunger in you, and makes you go through several feelings all at once from ‘I wish I had done that!’ to ‘How did they even think of that?’

The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is the best advertising school one can get into. For the newbies who’ve just started in the industry, it’s the best way to learn the fundamentals. For the experienced ones, it’s the best benchmark to beat. And for everyone, it’s the gold standard of work to strive for.”

We have established that a marketer's presence at the Lions opens doors for creativity, but how does it impact a brand’s marketing strategy?

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Rana feels the same about brands developing their marketing strategies.

According to her, “Auto-pilot strategy is the worst thing that can happen to brands. Attending Cannes Lions breaks that and fills marketers with questions: Why should I just make a TVC and not do a brand experience idea that can solve my brand’s problem? What is the most clutter-breaking way of doing a celebrity endorsement?

Interestingly, Cannes answers a lot of questions that brand marketers always had: Can an expert brand make a humorous ad without diluting its equity? Can a tech-led idea work in a third-world country? Can a legacy brand ever be made cool?

Cannes Lions can help them rethink every little bit of their brand’s strategy and inspire them to snap out of autopilot and walk a path that hasn’t seen steps before.”

Titus Upputuru, Founder of The Titus Upputuru Company, calls Cannes Lions the “inspiration box.”

Speaking of his experience at Cannes, he said, “There are thousands of conversations that happen in and around the Palais. I would certainly advise marketers to attend the festival at least once in their lifetime to gain perspective. Like this one time, I learnt how ugly the new marketing tool was. 

Also, the air, the atmosphere, the energy, the people, the conversations, the awards, the films, the streets, the food, and the music. It all adds up to the yearly dose of inspiration one needs.”

Reflecting on the insights gained at the festival, Rana emphasised three key learnings:

1. Clarity of the problem: “The sharper the problem, the more effective the solution. Often, briefs fail to address the core issue, resulting in less impactful solutions,” she explained.
2. Uniqueness of the Solution: “Anyone can solve a problem, but only a few can do so in a way that shakes the world with unparalleled originality. Breaking the clutter requires distinctiveness,” she noted.
3. Explorations: “The world is evolving rapidly, and Cannes Lions provides a window into global trends, upcoming innovations, and better ways to refine our craft,” she added.

Now that we have established that going to Cannes is important for marketers to get off autopilot strategising and start thinking outside the box, the question that comes to the forefront is what is stopping more and more marketers from attending Cannes Lions then?

Adityan Kayalakal, Head of Marketing and Founding Member of Veera (the Indian browser), calls it “expensive learning.” 

Elaborating on his thoughts further, he said, “It’s like a trip to Siddhi Vinayak, where everyone should go once if they can afford to. Since agency budgets for sending people to Cannes are tight, as revenues are in rupees while Cannes entries and travel are in euros, making it super expensive. 

Some agencies, like Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and JWT, and some independents, prioritise sending people to Cannes as they enter the awards every year; not every agency has the budget to send a bunch of people. On the marketing side, if we aren’t entering, there is a limited point in going unless networking is key. Case studies and other resources can be found online without going to Cannes. WARC and Effie’s are good resources for this.”

Marketers listen in! Rana's advice for you is, “Creativity is subjective. Understanding creativity, and judging it right is a soft skill that takes years to develop and master. Cannes Lions is a great way to do a crash course in creativity and understand it more deeply.

Cannes Lions is a school that everyone in advertising should go through. Sometimes as a student, and sometimes as a teacher, but at all times, as a learner.”