Day 2 at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity witnessed a few more Middle East agency leaders jump up in joy as the region's total tally of trophies rose from two to six, including three Silver and three Bronze Lions.
' The Birdwatcher ' campaign for Spoor by FP7 McCANN MENAT – about AI-powered bird monitoring for wind projects – won three metals cats. It was awarded a Silver Lion and Bronze Lion in the Digital Craft category, and another Bronze Lion in the Design category.
The ‘ Let It Fly ‘ campaign for Saudia Airlines by Publicis KSA, Jeddah and Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East claimed a Silver Lion in the Outdoor category.
' The Ring: The Legacy Continues ' brand campaign by BigTime Creative Shop in Riyadh was also honoured with a Silver Lion in Film Craft category.
Memac Ogilvy 's ‘ Is that a Pinntorp? ’, which is part of its ‘ Affordable Masterpieces ‘ campaign for Saudi Arabia’s IKEA AlSulaiman, picked up a Bronze Lion in the Print & Publishing Lions category.
Click here to find out all the top contenders for Cannes Lions awards from the Middle East region.
Apart from the awards, there were also a lot of learning opportunities, creative brainstorming sessions and workshops, and game-changing closed-door business strategy meetings.
An Audi R26 got all the looks near the Aleph yachts; Oprah Winfrey drew crowds to the Lumiere Theatre in the Palais; while Ryan Seacrest and NFL Chief Marketing Officer Tim Ellis had crowds braving the heat at the dentsu Beach House.
At Cannes Lions, where the industry often speaks in the language of platforms, performance and personal branding, American host and television producer Oprah Winfrey brought the conversation back to something older, quieter and far harder to fake: human intent.
Accepting the 2026 LionHeart Award – Cannes Lions’ highest honour for individuals using their platform for positive social impact – Winfrey offered far more than a reflection on her career.
For an industry wrestling with authenticity and trust in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), her first provocation was aimed at the phrase every marketer uses too easily: brand.
Winfrey admitted that she once rejected the idea entirely. “When I first started out, I 100 per cent resisted ever being called a brand,” Oprah Winfrey said. “I didn’t want to be a brand.”
But her view evolved – not into the polished, manufactured idea of a brand, but into something more rooted. “I have accepted that I am a brand,” Winfrey said. “And I accept that my heart is my brand.”
That distinction matters. In a world where image can be engineered and content can be generated at scale, Winfrey’s point was simple: trust cannot be performed for long. “The brand is just an expression of yourself,” she said to a packed theatre at the Palais.
Her operating principle, she explained, has been intention. At The Oprah Winfrey Show, the question was not merely what needed to be produced, but what it was meant to do. “We’re no longer going to do any show unless I’m in alignment with your intention,” Winfrey recalled telling her team.
That discipline became a process. “We would have meetings before every show a week before to talk about what the intention is going to be,” she said. “And then we’d have a meeting after every show. Did we fulfil the intention?”
For marketers, this could unlock a sharper metric than reach alone. Before asking whether people watched, clicked or…