It doesn’t matter if the campaign was real, as long as the case study looks real. That’s been the unspoken reality behind certain Cannes Lions wins for well over a decade. In 2025, the lid finally came off.
When DM9’s Grand Prix-winning campaign for Consul in Brazil was stripped of its award, along with the withdrawal of other winning entries from Brazil (New Balance) and the one from India being called out for "performative greenwashing" (Britannia), it exposed more than AI manipulation. It revealed how expedient data and politically correct narratives are engineered to win. It confirmed what many of us in the industry have known for years: the Cannes case study is no longer a reliable mirror of truth. It’s theatre. And like any good theatre, it’s formulaic, embellished, and emotionally constructed to sway a jury, much like how the Marvel Cinematic Universe reuses familiar tropes for blockbuster effect.
I’ve long believed sunlight is the best disinfectant. These revelations shine a light on something deeper: the awards scrutiny model is outdated, and Cannes has a genuine opportunity to evolve with the times.
The Cannes case study formula
Having led digital and strategic agency teams across India and Southeast Asia, I’ve seen the ‘Cannes strategy’ play out in boardrooms. Here’s how it typically works:
A moderately successful campaign or sometimes just a decent idea is ‘award-ready’ with a compelling narrative. It leans heavily on proven Cannes-winning themes, such as social good, emotional uplift, sustainability, and inclusivity. Metrics are massaged to fit the narrative arc. Often, the story borrows cues from past global winners, localised through a regional lens. In some cases, entire campaigns are built purely to chase awards, with little relevance to actual business goals.
To be clear, this isn’t done out of malice. Most creative leaders and agency heads are well-intentioned, talented, and passionate. But the career-defining pressure to “bring home a Lion” makes this kind of theatrical embellishment almost inevitable.
In this game, the best theatre wins. And that’s the problem... it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
When story outweighs substance
Let’s be honest: AI isn’t the problem. The real issue is Cannes’ long-standing practice of valuing packaging over performance in some key categories. It doesn’t matter how much a campaign actually moved the needle for the client. What matters is how moving the film about that campaign is.
If it lacks a dramatic voiceover, a sweeping cause, or cinematic emotion, even the most impactful campaign rarely makes the shortlist. This prioritisation of narrative fidelity over factual fidelity inherently disadvantages smaller players. Those without large budgets to produce polished films, yet who have delivered exceptional results, are often overlooked.
Here’s the irony: AI could actually help level the playing field. Smaller, scrappier teams that truly solved business problems can now use AI to present their work in ways that rival the gloss of global giants. But AI also enables the opposite: synthetic creativity and synthetic results, wielded by those with the craft and compute to influence juries.
That’s why verifiable impact must speak louder than digital gloss. AI-enabled or not.
Creativity must be verifiable, not just ‘awesome’
To stay relevant in the age of AI, Cannes must reset its standards so that outcomes matter more than ornamentation. Right now, case studies function like CVs: curated, embellished, and optimised for impression.
But what if Cannes incentivised truth upfront? Imagine a submission model where campaigns are nominated mid-flight. Performance data is securely submitted in real time, verified by third parties or platform benchmarks. When results are self-evident, there’s no incentive to fabricate a post-facto narrative. It may not be perfect, but it’s a start. And it would reward those doing meaningful work, not beyond crafting great trailers.
To Cannes’ credit, the 2025 edition has taken some encouraging steps to tighten nomination and judging standards. Hopefully, that’s a sign of a broader shift toward evaluating the idea itself, not just the film about the idea.
Cannes isn’t threatened by AI. It’s evolving because of it.
This isn’t an AI crisis. It’s a format crisis. The case study, as the definitive mode of creative evaluation, has outlived its utility. In a world where content is cheap and manipulation is easy, the longer we reward performance art over performance impact, the further we drift from the true purpose of creativity.
Let’s not scapegoat AI. Let’s use this moment to rebuild a reward system where truth is the baseline.
I honestly believe that if David Ogilvy were with us today, he’d have said: “I don’t care if ChatGPT wrote your headline. I care if it moved product off the shelf.”
And I couldn’t agree more.
