Day two at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity kicked off with five shortlists for India.

Our first stop of the day was at the Havas Cafe, where the French-headquartered company unveiled a proprietary research - ‘The Science of Desire’. The report revealed that brands building 'desire' are 2.4x more likely to grow, as Havas aims to advance its next phase of the Converged.AI ecosystem. The Group also announced an increased investment in Vurvey Labs, an agentic intelligence scale-up, combining consumer interviews with AI-powered agents to help brands uncover deep behavioural insights at scale.

Yannick Bolloré, chairperson and CEO, Havas, explained, “At Havas, we believe growth starts with what truly moves people. In today’s AI-driven landscape, the most successful brands will be those that combine technological power with deep human understanding and creativity, to build lasting connections. With The Science of Desire and the continued evolution of our Converged.AI ecosystem, we are equipping our clients to unlock stronger, more sustainable growth." 

Read about this here.

This year, the 2026 Cannes LionHeart is being awarded to Oprah Winfrey. The award celebrates individuals who are driving positive change, challenging the status quo, and inspiring others through their actions and their voice.

In conversation with Phil Thomas, chairperson, Cannes Lions, Winfrey talked about how she built the 'brand Oprah', importance of authentic empowerment and how she harnessed her platform to create a meaningful impact on people. 

We followed this with a one-on-one with Emily Graham, chief inclusion and impact officer, Omnicom. She chatted with us about how the industry has a mountain to climb to achieve inclusion, and shared how Omnicom is starting that ascent both globally, and in India. She also addressed the skew towards more male leaders in the India system post the IPG-merger. The full interview will be available in our July issue.

Stay tuned for more updates from the festival!