Cannes Contenders: Havas trains its sights on Lions

As Cannes Festival of Creativity 2025 looms, agencies in India are backing their boldest bets. In this feature, Havas reveals the campaigns it is putting on the global stage—and why it believes they’ve got the roar to bring home a Lion across categories. Expect creativity with claws.

Campaign: Ink Of Democracy

Brand: The Times of India

Cannes Lions categories: Print and Publishing, Media, Direct, Titanium, Design, Creative Data Lions, PR

Ahead of India’s 2024 General Elections, The Times of India and The Economic Times swapped their usual black headlines for a striking shade of purple—the colour of electoral ink. This ink, typically used to mark voters’ fingers, symbolises democratic participation. In the previous election, however, 7,500 litres of it went unused as 33% of eligible voters stayed away from the polls due to apathy and disillusionment.

To drive home the message, one page was printed in purple for every 132 absent voters, amounting to 2.28 million impressions, each urging: ‘Don’t waste a drop of electoral ink. Don’t waste the power of democracy.’

The campaign spurred a 280% rise in brand mentions and engagement. India responded with a record-breaking 642 million votes—30 million more than the previous election—despite extreme heat.

Anupama Ramaswamy, chief creative officer and joint managing director at Havas Worldwide India, said, “The magic of this idea lies in its simplicity.”

Campaign: LullabAI

Brand: Alembic

Cannes Lions categories: Audio & Radio, Health & Wellness

In India, lullabies are deeply woven into the cultural fabric—serving as a vital bonding ritual that aids a child’s emotional and cognitive development. Yet, for speech-impaired mothers, this intimate tradition has often remained inaccessible.

‘LullabAI’, developed by Havas Life Mumbai, uses artificial intelligence to restore this experience. The platform converts short voice samples from speech-impaired mothers into personalised lullabies by applying data cleaning, augmentation, and model training to match their voice with pre-recorded tracks. The result is a unique lullaby in the mother’s voice, which she can play for her child at any time.

The initiative reached 35,718 gynaecologists, generated over 1,500 minutes of personalised lullabies, and earned 751,923 in media value.

Sachin Talwalkar, chief creative officer at Havas Life Mumbai, said, “Working on ‘LullabAI’ made us push the boundaries of tech by re-inventing it to enable a maternal experience that’s profound and essential for early childhood development.”

Campaign: Bhog Elo Boney

Client: Swiggy

Cannes Lions categories: Glass: The Lion for Change and Outdoor

Swiggy Foods’ ‘Bhog Elo Boney’ campaign reframed the social narrative around widowhood in India by spotlighting the Tiger Widows of the Sundarbans—women traditionally excluded from Durga Puja celebrations. The initiative brought a floating Durga Puja pandal directly to them, enabling their participation in rituals long denied to them. 

Beyond symbolic inclusion, the campaign also supported economic empowerment by facilitating the first-ever e-commerce listings of their locally sourced produce on Swiggy’s platform. Over 5,000 marginalised individuals, most of them widows, were included in the festival for the first time. 

Mohit Joshi, CEO, Havas Media Network India, said, “With ‘Bhog Elo Boney,’ we are proud to stand alongside Swiggy Food in reshaping social narratives and fostering inclusion. This campaign goes beyond advertising—it’s about creating genuine, lasting impact.” 

The campaign earned over 1 million organic video views and sparked widespread media and influencer-led conversations challenging cultural taboos around widowhood.