India's awards tally at Cannes Lions second-lowest in last seven years

After a record tally of 40 and 21 in the last two years, India fell short by a big margin in the awards race at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity which stood at 18 this year. 

India bagged 12 bronze, five silver and a solo gold on the last day of the festival.

The gold breakthrough came when FCB Ulka’s entry The Open Door Project for Millennium School won in the Sustainable Development Goals category.

Last year, the gold count was four, silver was six and India had bagged nine bronze Lions along with two Grand Prix, the top award at the ad festival.  

Despite having one of the highest number of entries at 1,053, India could not even come close to last year’s tally.

From 2013 to 2018, there have been 1110, 979, 1035, 1315, 1227, and 979 entries respectively, with 2017 recording the highest tally. Earlier, India won 34, 27, 13 and 27 awards from 2013 to 2016, respectively.

In all these years, the awards tally in 2019 seems to be the second lowest after 2015.

Amid agencies, the leadership position vis-a-vis the number of awards was taken by Dentsu Aegis Network, that had 19 shortlists and six Lion wins.

Ashish Bhasin, CEO Greater South and Chairman and CEO India, Dentsu Aegis Network said that their “win signals the beginning of the end of dinosaur-ish legacy creative agencies that are struggling to adapt to the changing environment”.

While agencies like FCB Ulka and Dentsu Webchutney made a mark at the festival, Ogilvy India couldn’t bag any awards despite three shortlists.

Dentsu Webchutney won awards for its campaigns for large new-age clients like Flipkart, Swiggy and Uri: The Surgical Strike.

This year there were sixty-eight shortlists from 15 agencies and awards were won by 10 of them.