Burson MENA takes Gold at 2025 Young Lions PR Competition
Burson MENA has taken home a Gold in the PR category at this year's Young Lions Competitions, held during the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The winning team — Raneem Saleh and Youssef Yammine — topped the category with The Silent B, a campaign responding to a brief by Bee:wild, which tasked entrants with encouraging city mayors to rewild urban spaces for pollinators.
Held annually as part of the Cannes Lions School and sponsored by Adobe, the Young Lions Competitions provide a global platform for rising creative talent to tackle real-world briefs in a high-pressure format. This year's edition welcomed nearly 460 competitors from 67 markets, including returning teams from Venezuela, Uruguay and Ukraine.
The 2025 edition also marked several firsts – with Turkey winning its first-ever Gold in the Marketers category and Guatemala taking its first Gold in Film.
Here is the full list of winners and their assigned briefs across all seven categories:
PR
The brief was set by Bee:wild, which tasked entrants with creating an innovative PR strategy to encourage city mayors to transform their cities into pollinator hubs, reframing the concept of rewilding to spark competition and action.
Gold: The Silent B – Burson, MENA
Raneem Saleh, Account Director
Youssef Yammine, Associate Creative Director
Silver: Construction Worker Bees – Weber Shandwick, France
Louis Govindin, Art Director
Remi Vincent, Art Director
Bronze: Build the Buzz – Hero and Outlaw, Czech Republic
Adam Rektor Polánek, PR Consultant
Jakub Wija, PR Consultant
Marketers
The Braille Institute set the brief for this category, asking teams to reposition the organisation and encourage individuals with low vision to seek help and support from their services.
Gold: Lines of Resistance – Kenvue, Turkey
Sedef Selcan Ozcan, Senior Assistant Brand Manager
Selda Ozturk, Senior Brand Manager
Silver: Signal For Sight – Google, Australia
Jenny Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager
Keira Spencer, Brand Marketing Manager
Bronze: The better you see it, the more you taste it. – Kraft Heinz, Spain
Bruna Roca García, Brand Manager
Nahomi Vargas, Brand Manager
Film
Ovarian Cancer Action briefed teams to create a powerful and uplifting 60-second film to mark World Ovarian Cancer Day (8 May 2026), aiming to raise awareness and prompt early detection.
Gold: Victoria has a Secret – El Taier DDB, Guatemala
Ana Paula Escobar Farrington, Creative Director
Diego Leonel Apen Díaz, Art Director
Silver: Two Centuries Too Long – TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris, South Africa
Paula Andropoulus, Writer
Khomotso Makoto, Art Director
Bronze: From Underseen to Understood – BBDO, Portugal
Beatriz Roque, Creative Art Director
João Bronze, Creative Copywriter
Media
Ovarian Cancer Action also set the Media brief, challenging participants to develop a globally scalable media idea that would help bring ovarian cancer into mainstream public discourse.
Gold: Hidden in Plain Sight – GroupM, Norway
Angelika Marcinkeviciute, Programmatic Specialist
Maja Skaug Wirum, Programmatic Specialist
Silver: Below the Belt – Initiative, United States
Dana Nathanson, Associate Director, Strategy
Morgan McAlister, Director, Strategy
Bronze: To Be Cracked – Cossette Media, Canada
Samuel David-Durocher, Business Intelligence Analyst
Tristan Bonnot-Parent, Product Development Supervisor
Digital
Bee:wild also provided the Digital brief, asking teams to design a digital-led campaign to make wild bees famous among Gen Z audiences through education and collective action.
Gold: The Wildest Profile – Cheil Worldwide, South Korea
Subin Oh, Art Director
Sunmi Park, Copywriter
Silver: Running Wild – Anorak NoA, Norway
Jakob August Andresen, Creative / Copywriter
Svein Werner Lyngmyr, Creative / Designer
Bronze: AirBnBee – M+C Saatchi, Australia
Amy Morrison, Copywriter
Laura Murphy, Art Director
Print
For the Print category, Bee:wild asked creatives to develop a striking print ad that would encourage collective purpose and action in rewilding efforts, aimed at supporting the return of all bee species to healthy ecosystems.
Gold: The World Needs More Time – Sancho BBDO, Colombia
Carlos Arturo Orjuela Torres, Creative Director
Nicolás Castro Barrios, Creative Senior Copywriter
Silver: You Should Be Scared Too – GUT, Mexico
Ana Sofía Valdez Blanco, Art Director
Fátima Alejandra Quiroz Alderete, Art Director
Bronze: Forbees – DDB Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kiki Knoops, Junior Creative
Yascha Puts, Junior Creative
Design
The Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) India provided this year's Design brief, asking participants to create a fresh brand identity for an exhibition that challenges the perception that comics are a Western, child-centric medium.
Gold: In Frame – Rethink, Canada
Jesse Shaw, Senior Motion Designer
Zoë Boudreau, Associate Creative Director
Silver: Expression Timeline – Holy Motors, Georgia
Daniel Grigorian, Motion Designer
Nino Kavelashvili, Designer
Bronze: Keep Calm and Frame the Scroll – Redkroft, Poland
Mariia Demianiuk, Brand & Motion Designer
Marta Goździewicz, Brand Designer
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