Is Cannes the Creative Monarchy?

By Binaifer Dulani
You don't realise it's an uphill climb until you're halfway through. You're short of breath.
The sun's eight degrees hotter than it should be.
And just as you wonder if it's all a bit much — you turn the corner.
A gust of wind, and there it is: the red carpet. The Lion.
Staring down like it always does.
Commanding you to make history.
You're not out of breath anymore.
The Palais has that effect on people. Doesn't matter how many years you've been. The massive pillars still remind you — this is the establishment. The centre of the
creative monarchy
.
And like any monarchy, its relevance will always be debated.
Does the entry fee justify the ROI for
Indian agencies
?
Are the Lions even culturally in sync anymore?
Did India's low win count last year really impact business?
These are the questions you hear on the very steps of the Palais.
Even as folks switch from Palais wi-fi to their hotspot, to know the winners.
Me? I've come to think of the Lions as the monarchy.
There'll always be a section that argues against its existence.
Should we still be funding it with our hard-earned money?
Maybe not.
Will we be back again next year?
Why not.
But the allure of Cannes is never just the metal.
It's the people. The ideas. The ones who make you sit up and rewire a little.
So let me take you on a tour across the Palais, the Rotund Stage, The Terrace and the beaches around…
At the LBB Indie Forum, I watched Micah Walker (of Bear Meets Eagle on Fire) own the room with the kind of first principles thinking we rarely see anymore.
An outcome-based pricing model. No retainers. No fine print.
Just skin in the game — every single time.
And his biggest advice to new agencies?
What you say no to will define you more than what you say yes to. Then, at the Lumiere Theatre, a completely different kind of luxury was being redefined.
Heralbony. Not a charity. A full-blown design powerhouse built around licensing artwork created by individuals with intellectual disabilities.
What started as a deeply personal mission is now a business working with Toyota, Starbucks, and even Pepsi.
And what makes their aesthetic distinctive?
Pattern repetition — a design language that stems naturally from the neurodivergent mind.
The session closed with a live art piece by Satoru Kobayashi.
We all wrote down a single word of hope.
He turned it into an artwork.
(Guess what my word was.)
I wandered next into a session with the Uncensored CMO — a podcast I've been glued to lately.
He asked the existential: Advertisers or creators — who has the last word?
It was hard to ignore just how much of our future will be written by models like The New Thing —
Talented's very own cousin, part of its grid of companies.
Their work sits at the intersection of creator economy fluency,
brand building
, and measurable impact.
The data backed it too — showmanship doesn't just drive brand love. It converts.
This was bottom-of-the-funnel, hard-nosed, commercial thinking.
The night ended with awards. And here are some pieces that made an indelible impression on my mind.
From Ogilvy Shanghai's Make Love Last — a pharma category breakthrough that deserves its own film school.
To Caption with Intention, which brought the entire room to applause — in sign language.
To Budweiser's One Second Ad — a masterclass in media compression.
To Nike's Winning Isn't Comfortable — copywriting in its most physical form.
To Hyundai's Night Fishing — which makes you wonder how work, that painful and brilliant even gets commissioned.
Brazil may be Country of the Year. And honestly, it's hard to argue — the work is unreal.
But India's presence is undeniable.
From Lucky Yatra, to The Hidden Eye Test. Ink of Democracy to The Too Yum Hack.
And a personal highlight — Talented's win for Britannia's 100-year legacy. Its first ever break at
Cannes Lions
.
Still so much more to see.
Still so many 'Holy f***, why didn't I think of that' moments to come.
And thank God for that.
(The writer, Founding Partner & Creative, Talented, is an attendee at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2025. Views expressed are personal.)

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