53 Cannes Contenders from Asia

Air India Express - The Inglish Dictionary

Alkem Labs - DAWAI Reader

Agency: Lowe Lintas
Technology partner: Digital Rhetoric

Lowe Lintas: In rural India, where 65% of the population resides, access to trained doctors is limited and pharmacies are sparse. In these underserved regions, local chemists often act as the only point of healthcare. Yet, one critical and avoidable factor threatens this fragile system, illegible prescriptions.

Every year, 5.8 million people die due to medical errors in India, a significant portion of these errors stem from misread prescriptions. With no digitisation and limited training, chemists are forced to guess the contents of these prescriptions.

Introducing: ‘DAWAI Reader’ by Alkem Labs. An AI-powered, wireless prescription reader built to support chemists in India’s most remote pharmacies.

Ariel - Share the Load

BBDO India: Ariel #ShareTheLoad is the longest-running social movement by a brand, against gender inequality at home.

In 2015, Ariel addressed the condition, with a pertinent question, is laundry only a woman's job?

In 2016, they addressed the deep-rooted conditioning, with a heart-felt apology letter from a father to his daughter.

In 2018, they asked, are we teaching our sons what we are teaching our daughters?

In 2020, they addressed the impact of this inequality on women's health, rallying
for 'Equal Sleep' for women.

In 2022, they made the whole nation talk about the hidden bias, if men can share household work with other men, then why not with their wives?

In 2023, they addressed the emotional distance that creeps into marriage due to unequal distribution of household chores with 'Silent Separation'.

In 2024, they addressed the mental load of household chores that is holding women back. 57% of women declined work-related travel opportunities due to household chores. They rewrote the rules with a new focus on household dynamics. They asked, how strong is your home team?

Year after year, we spread the message of #ShareTheLoad through unique touchpoints: Wash Care Label, Comic Books, Name Change Pack and Home Map. The movement was covered by over 1900+ publications across 40 countries and even discussed at the World Economic Forum.

Britannia - Avani’s Gold

Britannia - Face the Facts

Agency: Lowe Lintas

Lowe Lintas: With this packaging refresh, we wanted to cut through the noise and simply put the truth out there. It’s about empowering our consumers with clear information, so they can feel good about enjoying a Britannia NutriChoice with their daily chai.

Britannia - Ma Se Marie

Lowe Lintas: There are multiple reasons to believe in this idea. For one, the Cannes Lions celebrate the best of creativity in advertising, the kind that makes you go, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Ours is a magical epiphany – we found something glittering that was hidden in plain sight for years. And for all our collective fascination with all things tech, Cannes still reveres simplicity; the deft sleight of ‘mind’ that is effortless and is obvious only in hindsight. The festival worships at the altar of pop culture; the big cultural moments unique to different countries/societies that affect a larger mass of people. It also loves when a big brand does a big, bold idea.

Britannia Marie Gold did all this with Durga Puja (the annual festival worshipping the Mother-Goddess) in West Bengal, India. By finding the ‘Ma’ in Marie, it fused the brand’s essence directly with a mega-hyperlocal cultural event. We incorporated a simple design change on our most mass SKU, the Rs. 10/- pack. And followed it up with a truly phygital campaign across WhatsApp, TV, print, radio, on-ground and an online marketplace.

After all, Britannia Marie Gold stands for the belief that every homemaker can be more, do more. The Mother Goddess symbolises the divine feminine virtues of creation, independence, courage and grit. This idea brought the brand’s belief and the Goddess’ truth together, with deep reverence and delightful play.

Britannia - Nature Shapes Britannia

Britannia - Paal Abhishekam

Agency: Lowe Lintas

Lowe Lintas: This moment is a beautiful reminder of what happens when a brand becomes deeply interwoven with people’s lives. To see Milk Bikis featured in a fan ritual like this speaks volumes about the bond it shares with Tamil Nadu. It’s a proud moment for all of us who’ve built stories around the brand over the years. And we’re especially glad that all the biscuits went on to serve a good cause.

BOSS - SO-SO Spins Tokyo

VML & Ogilvy Japan: SO-SO captured real-world sounds from each Yamanote Line station neighborhood – layering and mixing them into 30 original tracks using the BOSS Loop Station. These compositions became a one-of-a-kind audio journey, reflecting Tokyo’s diverse urban soundscape. The experience was extended through tissue handouts at stations by SO-SO look-a-likes, embedded with codes that triggered the sonic journey, turning everyday commutes into immersive sound adventures.

Candid - Scratch Music

BBDO India: With a tropical and changing climate, Indians are particularly at higher risk of skin infections. The itching and irritation leads to irresistible urge to scratch the skin infection.There’s an irresistible urge to scratch skin infections. But it only increases the risk of spreading it. As a market leader in a stagnant category, it was up to Candid Dusting Powder to move the needle.

Candid manifested the irresistible urge to scratch the itch with Indian classical melody,reminding people that while it feels tempting, one should not scratch their skin infection, and choose trusted Candid Dusting Powder instead. In the brand film, the protagonist blissfully sings, oblivious to onlookers, as he gives into the involuntary need to scratch – slowly transitioning into an unsettling singing when the rash is finally revealed.

Cathay - Re-Righting History

Centre for Community Initiative - My First Voice

DSP Mutual Fund - Garuda Rakshak

Dentsu: Garuda Rakshak was a tech-powered act of guardianship that turned DSP Mutual Fund’s purpose, “Invest for Good”, into action. Launched at the 2025 Purna Maha Kumbh, where over 660 million people gathered, it addressed a real crisis: the disappearance of children in the crowd. Traditional tech failed in this congested, chaotic setting.

DSP partnered with Falco Robotics to build drones modeled after the mythological Garuda, operating on 8-bit communication tech from the 1970s. These drones used ultra-low frequency signals from wristbands given to children to track their location – offline and in real time.

The result? Every child wearing a wristband was reunited. 78% of them were traced in under five minutes. The work improved brand health by showing DSP as a protector, not just an investor – using tech with empathy and purpose.

Flipkart - Big Billion Days - The Cover Up Coupon

DDB Mudra Group: To win over gen z, India’s biggest shopaholics, Flipkart turned its Big Billion Days sale into its biggest gen z sale ever. Still, it wasn’t going to be enough to get gen z to order frequently from Flipkart. Why? 82% of Indian gen z live with parents who see any spending as too much spending. And welcome every Flipkart delivery that comes home with truckloads of taunts.

So Flipkart went beyond giving just discounts. They created Cover-up Coupons. A collection of fake scratch and win vouchers for every gen z during the sale to make their shopping look like winning. Gen z could simply order it via Flipkart’s app while shopping, and get it delivered before the actual item. Making parents believe all their shopping was won and not bought.

Flipkart Minutes - Q Jumpers

FCB Kinnect: In a market saturated with quick-commerce promises, Flipkart Minutes knew it had to do more than just say ‘fast’. It had to prove it. On iPhone 16 launch day, while Q-comm brands flooded media with ads promising delivery in minutes, Flipkart cut through with one audacious act: delivering the iPhone to someone still in the queue outside Apple’s flagship Mumbai store.

As fans lined up for hours, a Flipkart-branded t-shirt with a QR code appeared ahead in the crowd. One curious scan, one Flipkart Minutes order, and seven minutes later, an iPhone was delivered before the customer even stepped inside. With nothing more than a t-shirt, Flipkart hijacked a cultural moment and won not by advertising speed, but by staging it in real life.

H Cookware - The Fire Walkers

Happiness Saigon: H Cookware is a cookware brand that entered Vietnam with low awareness and a limited budget, opting to focus on influential chefs who shape culinary trends.

To prove durability, it turned to the toughest kitchens, the streets, where pans endure daily fire and pressure. Instead of a traditional campaign, the brand created the Book of Steel, a guidebook crafted from the same stainless steel as its pans, featuring testimonials and stories from street chefs. Each cover was forged from actual pans and put through extreme tests (Impact, Heat, Deformation, Corrosion, Scratch) – with every mark serving as proof of performance.

This approach resonated with top chefs, earning the book a place in Vietnam’s leading restaurants. As a result, 349 influential chefs adopted H Cookware as their pan of choice, cementing its reputation for durability and reliability in professional kitchens. The book also earned for the brand a PR value of over $150.000 and 466% of organic reach growth on social launch, followed by user-generated contents among chefs, lifestyle influencers and multiple communities.

By merging design, storytelling, and product innovation, H Cookware successfully established itself in a competitive market without mass targeting.

HDFC Bank - Lulumelon EOSS

FCB Kinnect: Online financial fraud is rampant during festive and sale seasons, and fraudsters are now employing AI to scam innocent people. Traditional PSAs fail to engage with Indians as they harbour an optimism bias. India's first fraud awareness influencer, Vigil Aunty from HDFC Bank had to protect, awaken, and empower the masses.

During 2024’s end-of-season-sale, Vigil Aunty in collaboration with Nora Fatehi replicated the modus operandi of fraudsters by crafting an entirely fake brand – Lulumelon. Fake social media pages, fake websites, and even ads where Vigil Aunty deepfaked herself into Nora, they did it all!

Those who clicked on these ads (planted with red flags) landed on the reveal website, where they realised how easy it was to get scammed. They learnt how to identify fake websites and deepfake videos. They were encouraged to join the Vigil Army, a WhatsApp community of fraud fighters constantly updated with the latest frauds and safe practices.1.4 million people fell for Lulumelon’s EOSS. 750,000 people joined the Vigil Army. 350+ media outlets organically covered the campaign.

Heineken - Trust Bars

Hoegaarden - BAR---RIERS

McCann Worldgroup: Consumers are constantly seeking ways to simplify life and ease stress. They crave an escape from the daily hustle – even just outdoors in the city. A place to breathe, recharge, and unwind.

That’s why in China, over 35% of Hoegaarden’s sales come from street bars where young people gather to relax. But when roadside safety barriers were installed, this ease was disrupted. Foot traffic dropped, bar sales fell by 43%, and Hoegaarden’s sales declined by 18%.

Instead of relying on promotions that don’t fix the experience, we turned the problem into a creative solution: the Bar---riers – a clip-on device that transforms fences into counters or stools. Available via Hoegaarden’s B2B app, it gave street bars a fast, functional upgrade, aligned with Hoegaarden’s natural Belgian charm. Bars using it saw a 36% sales boost, and Hoegaarden’s brand perception reached a new high.

Huawei Pangu Cloud - Signs From Heaven

Ogilvy: Harnessing the power of the Huawei Pangu Cloud AI weather model, the team created MITAO Forecast – a low-tech, high-impact solution to bring accurate 10-day cyclone predictions to even the most remote villages. Weather alerts are sent via SMS to local coordinators, who then update public forecast boards featuring colour-coded tribal-style symbols easily understood by fishermen and children alike. The system, visually inspired by African tribal design, helps communities interpret weather data without needing electricity, literacy, or internet access. By combining advanced AI forecasting with traditional visual systems, MITAO empowers people to make safe decisions days in advance of storms.

Kirin Brewery - Sakura Scan

Krafton Inc. - Great In-Game Wedding

DDB Mudra Group: Being India’s largest gaming platform, BGMI has a responsibility towards the image of gaming itself. And it wasn’t helping that their own impact on the lives of gamers was portrayed as addiction and violence. But the truth about BGMI, and many other games, is that for gamers it is actually a platform connecting different individuals.

Gamers spend 3X more time in the BGMI lobby than in the game. It’s a place where gamers find friendships, advice, counselling and at times even love. Love has the power to change emotions and opinions. And when love turns into a great Indian wedding it can move anyone to join the bandwagon.

So they took an engaged couple and married them where they met. Inside BGMI. And invited India to be a part of the celebrations of the ‘Great In-Game Wedding’.

Kuro Snacks - CAMPANION

McCann Worldgroup: ‘CAMPANION’ challenges what caregiving tech can be. It is the most non-intrusive protection device that elevates the status of dogs as loyal companions. It doesn’t watch. It accompanies. Where fixed cameras fail – missing 80% of falls in bathrooms and bedrooms – ‘CAMPANION’ moves naturally, as only a loyal companion can. A first-of-its-kind product where living movement, AI interpretation, and emotional messaging merge.

‘CAMPANION’ surprises audiences: a dog becomes a caregiver. A beep before each capture trains the dog to approach the elderly, helping AI gather better context. This transforms AI from a cold sensor into a warm presence, offering emotional updates rather than surveillance, and reimagining caregiving as a bond, not a broadcast.

Lenovo - Gamers on Duty

Lifebuoy - H is for Handwashing

Lowe Lintas: Our strategy was grounded in behavioural science and child psychology. Kids aged three to five are at the ideal age for habit formation, but they don’t respond to traditional health messaging. They follow characters. They learn through play. So, we turned a viral cultural moment into a hygiene movement. Moo Deng captured attention. Teacher Hippo built the habit. Together, they transformed ‘H is for Handwashing’ from a familiar phrase into a fresh behaviour-change journey – combining emotional storytelling, AI-powered personalisation, and cultural localisation to make hygiene education feel personal, playful, and unforgettable at scale.

McDonald’s - Loconomy Burgers

McDonald’s - Night Classroom

McDonald’s - Shakashaka

DDB Mudra Group: To reignite gen z’s love for McDonald’s fries, they looked into their world of memes and music, where they chose brands that build experiences relevant to their culture.

This understanding, combined with a key consumer insight – our fan truth – shaped their strategy: “If you haven’t shaken your fries, do you even know you’ve eaten them right?”

People love shaking the Shake Shake Fries because that’s what makes eating them, perfectly divine. To appeal to this audience’s entertainment, humorous, and shareable content-first appetite, they decided to build a mockumentary world and converted Shake Shake Fries into Shakashaka: a musical percussion instrument, spreading its vibrations across stores and the internet to create a first-of-its-kind musical tribe.

These films, along with in-store activations, shook up the gen z universe.

National Library Board, Singapore - Snap AR - Augmented Reading

Nikka Whiskey - Yagi Yoshi

Dentsu: Our work was a major branding project for Nikka Whisky in Japan. We created print and OOH advertising, a brand book, promotional items, videos, and the concept for a new flagship bar and shop in one of Tokyo’s trendiest districts. We developed a new brand story based on the founder of Nikka Whisky’s belief that ‘whisky is not just a drink, but a spirit that inspires people to celebrate the joy of life’. We stripped away all labels – from the product, and from the people who consume it – and depicted a life unbound by conventional perceptions about age, gender, and social status. Through dramatic use of silhouettes, we created a new visual storytelling language that does not rely on the name of the product or people’s faces to deliver its message. By illuminating the essence of whisky itself, we redefined whisky culture for the consumers of today.

OREO - History in the Baking

OUI Inc. - Smart Eye Camera

ProMate - Second Life Notebooks

Ogilvy: While blind students lacked basic resources, over four million sighted students in government schools were discarding used notebooks every year. ProMate, Sri Lanka’s leading stationery brand, saw a powerful solution hiding in plain sight. The brand launched ‘Second Life Notebooks’, a nationwide campaign to collect gently used notebooks and repurpose them for visually impaired students. Since blind students cannot see previous writings, the leftover pages in these notebooks remained perfectly usable for Braille.

To create emotional resonance, the campaign debuted with a moving short film about two brothers – one sighted, one blind – reversing the traditional idea of hand-me-downs. It reimagined used notebooks not as castoffs, but as tools of empowerment. The film concluded with a call to action: donate your used notebooks at ProMate collection points and help support a more inclusive and equitable future for all students.

Renaissance - Walls of Change

Agency: POP5

POP5: No matter how good your idea, the only thing that really matters is what your idea ends up doing. It’s all about the creative impact.

During the people’s uprising against government corruption in Bangladesh, Walls of Change captured thousands of pieces of protest street art. Published them in a book. Got that book into the hands of the new government. Which is now using it to draft new laws based on the actual wishes of the people.

So far, eight pieces of street art have been turned into eight new laws. And there’s more to come. Creative Impact. It’s everything.

SATO - Asuiwa

Dentsu: This campaign challenged Japan’s outdated surname law – typically impacting women – and transformed it from a women's rights issue into a national cultural imperative, driving real-world shifts in both public opinion and government policy.

SBI LIFE - Hug of Life

Dentsu: In India, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among women, yet only 18% have ever performed a self-exam.

The best time to do a self-breast examination is a week after menstruation because that is when the breast is least dense. ‘Hug of Life’, a Thanks A Dot initiative by SBI Life, turned an object commonly used by women during menstruation pain, the hot water bottle, into a tactile guide for self-exams, transforming awareness into action.

Seiko - The Gift of Time

Silver Wolf Whiskey - The Football Match That Sells

Stayfree - #BetaStayfreeLeAana

DDB Mudra Group: Stayfree made it their mission to make men talk about menstruation, realising that a woman’s shame around periods comes from the discomfort of the men around her.

The reason was discovered as conditioning from childhood: as young boys and men are taught to look away from periods. Since 2022, Stayfree has hijacked Daughter’s Day to talk to sons – because if boys can be comfortable about periods, girls will be, too. Instead of PR-worthy buzz, we wanted to create lasting behaviour change through interaction and action.

So, Stayfree urged parents to make their sons comfortable with periods by simply adding a pad brand – Stayfree or otherwise – to the shopping list they often handed to boys for a run to the store. Stayfree’s goal is to make boys as comfortable with buying pads as they are with toothpaste or bread – putting India another step closer to breaking generations of period shame.

Steadfast - Dirty Money

Lowe Lintas: Steadfast needed to promote its note counting machines to businesses that still rely on manual cash handling. The challenge: how do you make a low-involvement B2B product culturally and creatively relevant? The answer was a humorous film rooted in an everyday behavior – finger-licking while counting cash – and an exaggerated but believable situation.

The narrative doesn’t explain features directly; it creates discomfort and humour around
inefficiency, subtly reinforcing the value of counting smarter. The campaign was designed for digital-first channels and trade circulation, where shareability and memorability were key. It succeeded in reframing a utilitarian product into a modern business essential.

Suntory - The Sync Ad

Tata Ultra Marathon - Feet of Glory

Agency: BBDO India

BBDO India: In India, millions of children lack access to proper running shoes. India’s running culture still struggles to find inclusivity, accessibility, and something as basic as running shoes, especially among underprivileged kids. For generations, pledges have always been made with hands. The pledge to love, to lead, to protect, to change. But never has a pledge been made with feet.

The Tata Ultra Marathon ‘Feet of Glory’! For the first time in the history of pledges, we got runners to pledge using their feet. We invited runners to make a pledge by dipping their feet in vibrant colours, creating colourful footprints. Each footprint became a pledge for Tata to donate a pair of running shoes to underprivileged children across India.

TECNO - Tone Proud

McCann Worldgroup: ‘Tone Proud’ is a global campaign that rallies people of all skin tones to create the industry's largest and most accurate skin tone database – a database that will power AI and all future technologies to perform more inclusively.

As a brand that believes that technology meant for the world should be made by the world, the campaign’s digital-first approach ensured seamless integration of advocacy, education, and engagement across the globe, with focus on markets which lack representation in media and imaging technology such as Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

This engagement was a platform for everyone to celebrate their diverse skin tone but also play a role in shaping the new phones by TECNO. The amplified effect from this engagement will create a more accurate bank of images that continues to power any other AI, even those of our competitors.

The Awakening Foundation - Unfreeze My Rights

Dentsu: A bold initiative that challenged Taiwan’s outdated reproductive laws, contributing to significant legislative progress for women’s reproductive rights.

Titan Eye+ - Eye Test Menu

Ogilvy: To mark World Sight Day, Titan Eye+ launched the ‘Eye Test Menu’ – a campaign that transformed over 382 dhabas across India into pop-up eye clinics. Food menus were replaced with creatively disguised vision charts. Drivers could only “order” by reading from the menu, subtly revealing potential vision problems. On-site optometrists offered free eye check-ups, and those diagnosed received custom prescriptions with spectacles delivered to their homes for free to make Indian roads a safer place.

Designed in the style of vibrant Indian truck art, the menus made vision testing feel familiar, fun, and stigma-free. In collaboration with Tata Motors, United Nations India, and transport authorities, Titan Eye+ turned everyday rest stops into life-saving intervention zones.

Too Yumm! - Too Yumm! To Cheer

FCB Kinnect: Too Yumm! To Cheer turned a stadium ban into snackable brilliance. With no access to sponsorships or in-stadium sales, during India’s biggest cricket tournament, Too Yumm! pulled off a classic desi jugaad: the world’s first edible cheer signs. Giant chips designed as fan posters, complete with match slogans in edible ink, were packed individually for hygiene and smuggled into stadiums by fans.

As they munched mid-match, the slogans disappeared, leaving just two words: Too Yumm! A snack disguised as a poster disguised as an ad, it slipped through rules and straight into the spotlight. More than a stunt, it was a moment of fan-fuelled rebellion, proving that in a league of big spenders, you don’t need a billboard to steal the game.

TVS Motor Company - Protect Little Riders

Lowe Lintas: ‘Protect Little Riders’ is a crusade through which we are putting a spotlight on one of the biggest blind spots on our roads – kids without helmets. There are millions of kids out there in our country going on two-wheelers every day without helmets, Ironically, as parents, we think about the good of the child first in every little aspect, yet here is an unfortunate exception that we don’t find anything wrong with. We are glad that a thought leader like TVS Motor has taken up the cause to bring a serious behavioural change amongst adults to protect children’s lives and create a culture of safety and responsibility.

Unilever - Chai Bansuri – The Tea Flute

Ogilvy: ‘Chai Bansuri – The Tea Flute’ was brought to life with meticulous attention to detail. A specially designed 500-litre tea kettle was crafted to play a Raga using the steam from brewing tea. As the tea brewed, rising steam passed through a concealed flute inside the spout, activating mechanised fingers that moved in perfect sync to perform Raag Hamsadhwani (a classical Indian raga). A specially engineered superheater ensured a steady flow of steam at the right pressure, allowing the notes to play seamlessly. This musical marvel was placed along the scenic banks of the Krishna River – a popular evening spot for families and youngsters creating an unforgettable experience for all who witnessed it.

Unilever - Vaseline Verified

Ogilvy: For the first time ever, Vaseline brought viral social media hacks into real scientific labs. Each hack was rigorously tested to either confirm or debunk the claims – earning a new seal of trust: ‘Vaseline Verified’.

This campaign transformed reactive internet trends into proactive branded entertainment. With over 450 creators onboard, Vaseline embedded itself into the culture of beauty and skincare hacks – turning lab results into shoppable content, digital trophies, and even product collaborations. Science met storytelling in a way that was both credible and culturally relevant.

Viatris - Make Love Last

Ogilvy: Partnering with a renowned artist, Viagra invited three real couples to share their stories of intimacy and vulnerability. Left alone with a camera, their unspoken closeness was captured through time-lapse photography, transforming fleeting, quiet gestures into lasting visual expressions of love. This intimate visual installation was unveiled online during Chinese Valentine’s Day, framed as a piece of art rather than a pharmaceutical ad. Amplified by medical experts and relationship KOLs, the campaign encouraged open discussions around intimacy, while staying within regulatory bounds.

Vim - Equal Vows

Lowe Lintas: The ‘Equal Vows’ campaign goes beyond messaging – it’s about driving real change in how partnerships are perceived and lived. By integrating cultural moments like mass weddings and collaborations with platforms that shape modern relationships, we’re sparking conversations around equality in households. This initiative is a step toward normalising shared responsibilities as a fundamental part of every marriage.

Vodafone Idea - Vi Guardian Beads

Ogilvy: Vi introduced ‘Guardian Beads’, a culturally resonant, tech-free solution designed to help lost pilgrims reconnect with their families. Sacred bracelets made from Rudraksha and Tulsi beads are a longstanding tradition at the Kumbh Mela, believed to protect the wearer and never removed once tied. ‘Guardian Beads’ took this tradition further by engraving single digits onto each bead, allowing wearers to display their mobile phone numbers on the bracelet itself. These waterproof numbers ensured they remained legible even after the ritual holy dips. This simple, culturally meaningful innovation transformed a spiritual symbol into a lifesaving tool for thousands.

WhatsApp - Oye Lucky ft. Abhay Deol

BBDO India: WhatsApp launched a music video as part of its privacy campaign to enhance user safety. The video, featuring actor Abhay Deol, is a reimagined version of the classic track ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’ and aims to educate users on how to protect themselves from scams on the platform. The campaign was created in collaboration with BBDO India and uses nostalgia to highlight the importance of scam awareness and the utilisation of WhatsApp’s privacy features and safety tools.

This campaign follows WhatsApp’s privacy initiative launched in July, which focused on promoting user safety and equipping people with the tools and knowledge to protect their online presence.

The video presents common online scams such as fake job offers, impersonation fraud, and OTP scams in relatable scenarios. It emphasises the need for caution before taking any action and educates users on WhatsApp’s multiple layers of protection.