Adieu, Cannes! India returned from the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with 32 medals, including a Grand Prix, nine gold, nine silver and 13 bronze. This is not India’s best showing, though — it got 42 medals in 2022. Among the agencies, FCB India had a good outing, securing nine Lions, including a Grand Prix. Havas, Leo Burnett and Ogilvy each picked up a Gold Lion, and BBDO a silver.

Omnicom’s DDB Worldwide was named Cannes Lions Network of the year. Last year’s winner Ogilvy placed second in the special award category.

What was noteworthy this year was that the awards showed more global reach and diversity, with Brazil stealing the show.

The US secured the highest number of medals — 203 Lions, followed by Brazil with 99. Brazil was also honoured with the Creative Country of the Year award. The UK got 80, France 63 and India 32, rounding out the top five. While Japan (13) and Singapore (12) did well among Asian nations, there were first-time grand prix wins for Puerto Rico and the Czech Republic, and a first-time Lion for Uruguay.

The $1 trillion digital opportunity

E-commerce, content play and consumer discernment will continue to fuel the rise of a $1 trillion digital opportunity, says a new report by the India practice of Bessemer Venture Partners, titled ‘Click, Watch, Shop: The consumer opportunity in India’.

Commerce will become quicker, better and more aspirational across channels, it says, pointing out how, starting from a base of $30 billion in 2020, it is expected to get to $300 billion by the end of the decade in 2030, contributing to a $1 trillion digital opportunity.

Not only is quick commerce growing fast, but now there is also a trend of verticalised q-commerce emerging, with startups like Snabbit, Swish and Slikk catering to niche needs.

Content is growing with equal velocity. Over the past five years, short-form video platforms in India have witnessed a 3.6x growth in daily active users, competing with mainstream digital platforms.

Thanks to UPI-enabled micro-transactions, companies are able to experiment with diverse monetisation models beyond ads. Virtual tipping, UPI autopay and other micro-transactions are expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2029.

Indians are also spending heavily on categories that till some years ago were considered non-essential, such as physical and mental health, financial wellness and pet care.

There is now also increased spending on organic food, protein, fitness gadgets, preventive healthcare and wellness services.

Samsung’s bespoke AI appliance line-up

Korean chaebol Samsung has unveiled its 2025 Bespoke AI home appliance line-up, which includes air-conditioners that talk to fans, a laundry combo (washing machine-plus-dryer), and refrigerators that can recognise 37 types of fresh food and 50 types of packaged food and do a host of other smart things.

A consumer can onboard the devices and control them through the SmartThings app on their phone. Showcasing a connected living scenario in a smart home, the Samsung spokesperson said the four key values of the bespoke AI line-up are that they are easy (you could literally give voice commands through Bixby or use your phone as remote to control them), save energy, handle care (the AI in the appliance recognises maintenance issues and sends alerts) and are secure.

Interestingly, among the four values, the ones that appeal to Indians the most are the ‘saving energy’ and ‘care’ functionalities. The fact that SmartThings notifies users of any motion, smoke, or leaks, and that there is no need to search for warranty cards and so on, as alerts are sent to the care centre as well.

While the AI appliances are here, and the smart home ecosystem is getting into place, market research surveys have shown that cost and compatibility issues are inhibiting larger adoption. A question asked at the launch event, for instance, on how the AC could talk to the fan if the fan was an old model, elicited the answer that you would need a smart plug to make the fan connected.

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Published on June 29, 2025