Every year, Manifest aims to put Indian agencies that enter the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on the world's radar, even before the festival kicks off with its 'Cannes Contenders' series.

We kick off this year's series with Havas Creative India's entries in the festival. The agency finished third last year among Indian agencies in terms of points earned at the festival.

Last year, Indian agencies submitted a total of 982 entries for the festival and won 32 Lions.

Here are the entries:

The Times of India - Ink of Democracy

Categories entered: Creative Effectiveness 

In the previous Indian general elections, around 33% eligible voters didn’t turn up due to laziness, lack of awareness, and political alienation. This led to 7,500 litres of unused electoral ink— a purple-coloured ink, normally used to mark fingers after voting to prevent duplication of votes. 

Just before the 2024 elections, for the first time in history, pages of The Times of India and The Economic Times were printed in purple ink instead of the traditional black. For every 132 absent voters, one page was printed, totalling 2.28 million prints and one appeal: “Don’t waste a drop of electoral ink. Don’t waste the power of democracy.”

The ink once used as a mark of democracy became a reminder to defend it. As a response to the campaign, India broke free from political apathy and despite an intense heatwave, the country witnessed a world record of 642,000,000 voters turning up to cast their vote.

Pepsi - Any Time is Pepsi Time

Categories entered: Direct, PR, Media, Creative Strategy

When Coca-Cola, the official ICC Champions Trophy sponsor, launched their "Half Time" campaign asking fans to wait till halftime to enjoy a Coke, Pepsi saw an opportunity.

The central insight was simple but powerful: cricket fans don't wait. Culture today happens in real time. Asking fans to pause and hold on for a designated moment goes against everything cricket fandom is about.

So Pepsi flipped Coke's own idea against them, from Half Time to Any Time.

The campaign wasn't built around a separate brand universe. It weaponised Coke's own communication and turned it into the brief. Every moment - first time, thirst time, day time, we time, me time, basically every moment became a Pepsi moment. "Any Time" stopped being just a campaign thought and became a cultural idea.

What made it remarkable was the context: Pepsi had no official sponsorship, no stadium rights, a fraction of Coke's budget, and just four days to react. Yet through a fast, agile takeover - print, digital, OOH, organic brand collaborations and memes, Pepsi didn't just counter Coke, It owned the cultural conversation around the tournament entirely.

The result: Pepsi sold out with 9x sales, outpaced Coke significantly on offtake growth, and Coke never ran the Half Time campaign in any other market again.

Challenger mindset. Real-time culture. Any Time.