#Cannes2026 | Should Africa care about the Cannes Lions?
“Africa needs to use Cannes as a global stage,” says Audrey Quaye, creative director at Innova DDB Ghana.
She points to the impact of Africa’s music, fashion and design on the global stage. “Africa’s creativity is emerging as a big force, and Cannes is an opportunity to create world-class work and a good platform to showcase our work.”
“Cannes is a north star for creative excellence in Africa,” agrees Eric Mununuzi, chief creative officer at TBWA\Uganda.
Awards an afterthought
If this is so, why is Africa not bigger at Cannes.
Traditionally, the African market has not been award-focused. Even local awards are an afterthought.
“Local award shows are picking up, but that culture hasn't been there," says Mununuzi.
Graham Cruikshanks, director of Africa operations at TBWA, believes that for this to change, Cannes needs to be more familiar to African agencies and clients.
“This is starting to happen as more Africans are invited to Cannes as jury members and speakers.
A country that has tasted success at Cannes is Nigeria. Yusuf Adejumo, creative director, TBWA\Concept Nigeria.
Nigeria faces the same challenges noted by the other countries, but its success at the festival has raised the profile of the festival and awards in general in the country.”
Quaye adds that interest in Cannes in Ghana has grown. “The Advertising Association of Ghana is educating agencies on entering the awards. We are seeing a desire among creatives to participate at Cannes, “but we need to keep this momentum going”.
Intentionally building a culture of awards
Mununuzi says in Africa, there is a need to intentionally build a culture of awards with not only agencies but also clients.
“Clients need to believe in the value of awards and to invest in creative solutions and the budgets needed to produce world-class craft.”
He adds that there is a separation of sorts between work for awards and work for clients.
But this is shifting. “We are starting to see an appreciation of awards and an understanding that the work and awards are not mutually exclusive."
With this, he says they are also starting to see more budget allocated for this.
A lack of client budgets is also holding African agencies back.
“It is not a lack of ideas holding us back; it is a lack of budget. I have seen great ideas that just can't afford world-class craft. So, it stops at a great idea,” says Mununuzi.
Alex van Niekerk, executive creative director at TBWA\Ascent, based in Kenya, says, “Part of the problem is that many brands - and agencies - are overseen by international markets. Too often, successful campaigns in Kenya have been executed outside of the traditional agency client relationship.”
Mununuzi adds that this controls how much each market in Africa is allowed to spend, and it controls a lot of the resources.
Limited appetite for risk
Often, clients have limited appetites for creative risks.
“We've been in a session where we presented a campaign to a client, and the client's comment of the clients was that this idea is too brave for their audience. The suggestion was to break it down so that our target audience can relate to it,” says Adejumo.
Van Niekerk says success often comes outside of the approval process.
“When we do it in our own time, donating our weekend to work with friends and connections willing to do us a favour to shoot something for us.
“Then, when we made something, we find a brand or a product or a team of people who are willing to put their names to it, because now we don't have to convince people to invest in the idea, and then we managed to find a bit of success."
He calls it a “hustle culture outside of the agency and brand relationship”.
“We need brands and agencies to arrive at those ideas and agreements to get to something that feels like it's worthy of a kind of case study if we are to be successful at Cannes.”
What is great work?
Cannes is about craft and creative thinking, where the brand has an innovative or creative answer to a big problem.
Brands in Africa are not solving these types of problems, and much of the work is directly product-related.
“Creativity also means different things to different people. In markets with limited resources and skills, young people often lack knowledge of global work,” says Cruikshanks.
He recounts how he asked some students to give him two of their favourite global case studies.
“The reality is that nine times out of 10, they can't name a single one. It tells me that African markets are not looking at what's being done internationally as a sort of a beacon.”
Cruikshanks adds that African clients and agencies need to have a better understanding of the impact of strong creative work.
“African creatives need to be able to develop big, strong ideas and understand the importance of emotional brand type work.”
Success breeds success
Only a few African agencies have won at Cannes - Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya have had one-off wins - but outside of SA, there has been minimal showing of African agencies.
However, where African markets have tasted Cannes success, the move to more creative and award-winning work has gained momentum.
This has led to an increased understanding of creative work, bigger budgets and clients willing to take more risk as well as more education on awards and purpose-driven work.
What also helps is the increasing number of African countries represented at Cannes as speakers and on juries, which indicates that Cannes is paying more attention to the continent.
Cost of Cannes
But it is difficult for Africa to compete with brands and agencies that have millions of dollars to spend on creating work that will win at Cannes.
In addition, for many African agencies, the cost of entry to Cannes is prohibitive. Hence, the need for more inclusive initiatives from Cannes.
The creatives all felt that global events, not only Cannes, need to be more purposeful about being inclusive of African countries, and called for more inclusive initiatives from Cannes to support African creativity.
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