The Media Lions category has traditionally been one of India’s stronger hunting grounds at Cannes Lions. In recent years, Indian campaigns have regularly featured among the shortlists and winners. With 9 shortlists and 5 lions in 2025, this year’s outcome has become particularly striking. India secured just two shortlists in the category this year and failed to convert either into a Lion, prompting questions about whether the country's media creativity is losing momentum on the global stage.
Anisha Iyer, CEO, OMD India, doesn’t think that's the problem. Having served on the Media Lions jury this year, Iyer was part of the team that evaluated close to 2,000 entries before narrowing the field to roughly 100 shortlisted campaigns. Her biggest takeaway from the process was straightforward. “The challenge wasn't the two shortlists. There just weren't enough Indian entries,” she said.
Speaking with Neeta Nair, Editor, IMPACT Magazine, at Cannes Lions 2026, Iyer was quick to acknowledge the scale of the competition. “You’re looking at close to a hundred-odd shortlist spots in a category that had almost 2,000 submissions. It's not a joke to be on the shortlist in any way,” she said. But the bigger issue, according to her, is confidence. “We’re over-critical sometimes and we over-analyse our own work,” she said. “There is a slight undertone of under-confidence and that reflects in the number of entries that get submitted and the number of campaigns that we think are worthy of being submitted.”
For Iyer, the challenge is not the quality of Indian work but the confidence to back it. “There is a general slight undertone of under-confidence,” she said, arguing that agencies are often too critical of their own campaigns and underestimate what deserves to be entered. As a result, strong work is frequently judged too harshly before it even reaches the Cannes entry stage. “If it’s a good campaign, if it delivered good impact and it was an innovative solution from a creative lens, submit it,” she said.
She rejects the idea that Indian work falls short of global standards of creativity or effectiveness. Pointing to the success of Indian campaigns at local and regional award shows, Iyer argues that the issue is less about capability and more about confidence. “There is so much Indian work shining. If that’s the case, then why isn't so much getting entered as part of Cannes?”
That is why her appeal to agencies is simple: enter more work. “The more you enter, the more India gets represented here and the more diversity of India gets represented.”
Watch the full interview here:
One of the more interesting observations from this year’s Media Lions shortlist was that both Indian entries were linked to the Kumbh Mela. For Iyer, that demonstrates how strongly cultural context can resonate with global juries when it is clearly explained. The lesson, she believes, comes from Latin America. “They do a significantly good job of celebrating little corners of their continent or country,” she said. Rather than searching for universally relatable stories, Latin American agencies often take highly local insights and make them accessible to global audiences. India, she believes, can do more of the same.
The conversation also touched on the dominance of Latin American and Western markets among this year's winners. Having spent days inside the jury room, Iyer was quick to dismiss any suggestion that geography played a role. “We had a wonderful representation,” she said, noting that the jury included members from Singapore, India, South Africa, Dubai, Brazil, Mexico, Spain and the US. “The ones who won deserve to win regardless of where they originated from.” Instead, she pointed to the qualities that consistently stood out among the strongest entries: innovative thinking, effective use of media, smart targeting, creativity and measurable business impact. “Geography was the outcome. Geography wasn't the input at all,” she said.
The discussion eventually shifted to another industry talking point: consolidation. With Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG reshaping the agency landscape, some have questioned whether the disruption affected Cannes participation. Iyer dismissed the idea. “Not everything that we do has to do with consolidation,” she said. The decision to enter work, she argued, comes down to confidence in the work itself rather than organisational structure. That said, she sees significant opportunities in the combined Omnicom-IPG ecosystem. “Omnicom Media today in its new avatar is far more powerful than the Omnicom version previously,” she said.
For OMD, that means access to deeper capabilities, broader expertise and a wider set of solutions. “We were running in a certain arena. The arena has just suddenly gotten wider. There’s so much more to play around with.”
As Cannes Lions 2026 draws to a close, Iyer’s message is clear. India does not need to worry about geographical bias or consolidation. It needs to back its work with greater confidence. The talent exists. Creativity exists. The next step is making sure more of it gets seen.
