The Cannes Lions Festival 2025 concluded on Friday. There were amazing speakers, stimulating talks and glorious awards. I watched the festival digitally this year, from my home in Bengaluru. Yet, from thousands of miles away, I could still feel the passion and energy of the event.

Harshad Rajadhyaksha and Kainaz Karmakar, Chief Creative officers of Ogilvy India, were at Cannes. I requested both of them to give me five words that represented this year’s event. The five words that Harshad used were – Brave, Uplifting, Rewarding, Crowded, Hot. He gave me the title for this column. Kainaz, on the other hand, responded with “Cannexiety is worse than anxiety”. I fully empathise with her. After all, Cannes Lions awards are the Oscars of the advertising world.

I requested a few of my friends at Cannes to highlight one campaign from outside India that impressed them greatly. Most of them pointed to the “AXA Three words” campaign, developed for AXA, the insurance company, by Publicis Conseil, Paris. And why did they think so? Because the act of just adding three words – “and domestic violence” – to an insurance policy can change the way women can speak up against abuse at home. The campaign won two Lions Grand Prix awards. This case study is available on YouTube, in case you wish to know more.

Cannes Lions 2025 showed me that brilliant ideas such as this are still the stuff of great advertising. These are the ideas that not merely promote brands, but make a difference to society. And marketers need to work on generating many more of these big ideas, rather than churning out mediocre content.

David Lubars, former Chief Creative Officer of BBDO, won the Lion of St. Mark award this year to honour his lifetime of achievements. He was asked – Do marketers in today’s age need one big idea or lots of little ideas? His answer – We need lots of little executions of a big idea. The winning combination will be a big idea that can be executed in a trillion ways.

On that note, I bid goodbye to this year’s edition of Cannes Lions with the five words that I think sum up the festival for me: Amazing, Stimulating, Energising, Provocative, Inspiring. Au Revoir, Cannes. See you next year.

Harish Bhat is an avid marketer and bestselling author. He was previously the Brand Custodian at Tata Sons.

Published on June 20, 2025