Cannes Lions 2026 winners: Campaigns from the MENA region claim 20 Lions

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2026, agencies from the MENA region have lifted a total of 20 Lions and FP7 McCANN MENAT has been crowned the MENA Network of the Year for claiming the most number of metal cats at the awards programme.

The 20 Lions awarded to the region include 6 Silver Lions and 14 Bronze Lions.

Viewing the Cannes Lions wins by agency

FP7 McCANN MENAT leads the region with a total of 10 wins.

Meanwhile, Publicis KSA and Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East share two Lions; Edelman South Africa and Edelman Middle East share two Lions; and TBWA\RAAD claims two Lions for regional clients.

BigTime Creative Shop, IMPACT BBDO, Landor and Memac Ogilvy take home one shiny Lion each.

Viewing the wins by holding company and networks

Omnicom MENA led the region with 13 wins, including 10 for FP7 McCANN MENAT, two for TBWA\RAAD and one for IMPACT BBDO.

In joint second, WPP MENA, with Landor and Memac Ogily, and Publicis Groupe Middle East, with Publicis KSA and Saatchi & Saatchi, claimed two Lions. 

Viewing the wins by campaigns

Recipe for Change for Puck, Arla Foods by FP7McCANN MENAT won four Lions, followed closely by The Birdwatcher for Spoor by FP7McCANN MENAT with three Lions.

Spots for Shops, a campaign created for Parkin by FP7 McCANN MENAT; Let It Fly by Publicis KSA, Jeddah, and Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East for Saudia Airlines; and The Unburied Casket for Women for Change by Edelman South Africa and Edelman Middle East won two Lions each.

Meanwhile, L’Oréal Paris’ Missing Letters of Worth / Sit Al Bait campaign by FP7McCANN MENAT; The Ring: The Legacy Continues by BigTime Creative Shop; Laws Under Attack by TBWA\RAAD for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); Om Badr by TBWA\RAAD for KFC; Untaught History Edition for Annahar by IMPACT BBDO; The Coolest Ihram by Landor Dubai for Saudia Airlines; and Is that a Pinntorp? – part of the Affordable Masterpieces campaign by Memac Ogilvy for IKEA AlSulaiman all won one metal cat each.

Viewing the Cannes Lions wins by country

Campaigns entries from the UAE claimed 15 wins.

Campaign submissions from Saudi Arabia claimed three wins.

And a campaign entry from South Africa – with active partnership with UAE teams – won two awards.

Detailed round-up of all the Cannes Lions winning campaigns

Recipe for Change

This campaign for Puck under Arla Foods by FP7 McCANN MENAT in Dubai, UAE, won the most number of awards for the region, with a total of four Lions, including a Silver Lion and a Bronze Lion in the Media category, as well as a Bronze Lion for Creative Strategy.

The Recipe for Change for Puck by FP7 McCANN MENAT has been shortlisted twice in Glass: The Lion for Change at Cannes Lions 2026.

In the midst of a prolonged conflict that caused countless families to flee their homes in Lebanon, Puck launched its Recipe for Change campaign to empower and support Lebanese mothers and families by offering a sustainable source of financial support while celebrating Lebanon’s rich culinary heritage during Ramadan.

Puck took recipes of traditional home-cooked dishes, crafted by Lebanese mothers, to the menus of Lebanese restaurants across the UAE and KSA, pledging 50 per cent of the proceeds from each dish sold to Lebanese families.

The Birdwatcher

This 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 a Bronze Lion in the Design category.

Spoor, in collaboration with FP7 McCANN MENAT and MRM MENAT, came up with The Birdwatcher: an initiative that transforms complex wildlife monitoring data into an open, accessible experience, making previously invisible bird activity around wind farms visible to policymakers, industry and the public.

The challenge: Yes, wind energy is built to protect the future, but for too long, one part of that future has remained harder to see. Every year, birds and bats, including endangered and protected species, face real risks around wind farms: collisions, habitat disruption and the buffer zones that slow development in response.

At a time when renewable energy must scale faster than ever, what if the answer is not less wind, but better intelligence? To address this, Spoor’s technology, a patent-protected system combining AI-powered computer vision, geometric flight analysis, and ecological domain knowledge, continuously detects, tracks and classifies birds and enables curtailment at wind energy sites to prevent fatalities.

Spots for Shops

This campaign for Parkin by FP7 McCANN MENAT in Dubai, UAE, won a Silver Lion and a Bronze Lion in the Media category.

Parkin, a provider of paid public parking facilities and services in Dubai, in collaboration with FP7 McCANN MENAT launched ‘Spots for Shops’: a community-driven initiative that enables drivers to validate their Parkin parking fees simply by supporting small businesses in neighbourhoods across Dubai.

The initiative supported small businesses, which have Parkin-managed parking nearby. Customers could offset their parking fees by qualifying purchases at participating shops and validating it on the Parkin app, which then credits the value directly to their Parkin wallet.

The idea behind the supporting campaign was to transform routine parking into a practical incentive to stop, discover and support the hidden gems tucked between the city’s better-known destinations.

Missing Letters of Worth / Sit Al Bait

This campaign, brought to life by FP7 McCANN MENAT for L’Oréal Paris in the UAE was handed a Bronze Lion in the PR category.

One year after its launch, Sit Al Bait  ست البيت – the campaign launched by L’Oréal Paris in 2025 under its Women of Worth platform – transformed a familiar Arabic term and reframed how women’s roles are perceived across the region.

Developed in collaboration with FP7 McCANN Dubai, McCANN Paris, and Current Global MENAT, Sit Al Bait reimagined a familiar Arabic phrase – evolving “Sit Bait” (housewife) into “Sit Al Bait” (Woman of the House).

The addition of just two letters  – “Al” – shifted the meaning entirely: from a label of limitation to a title of leadership. In doing so, the campaign recognised the often-invisible contributions of millions of women across the Middle East – proving how two letters can reshape how women are seen and perceived. A small shift in language – yet one that struck a powerful cultural nerve.

Let It Fly

This campaign for Saudia Airlines by Publicis KSA, Jeddah and Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East claimed a Silver Lion in the Outdoor category and a Bronze Lion in the Direct category.

Saudia, the official airline and flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, unveiled its on-ground ‘Let It Fly’ campaign, a cultural initiative that rewarded travellers for supporting local businesses and craftsmanship, transforming their luggage into a suitcase full of stories.

Launching for the New Year, ‘Let It Fly’ was a luggage-sticker programme inspired by Saudi cities, crafts and cultural heritage. Travellers who purchased selected cultural items receive beautifully designed collectible stickers, with each sticker adding extra baggage allowance to their journey.

At participating stores, every SAR 50 (approximately £10 or $13) spent earned one sticker. Each sticker offered travellers an additional 0.5kg of baggage allowance, up to a maximum of 1.5kg per bag. The initiative encouraged visitors to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to take home meaningful cultural pieces without the worry of luggage limits.

The Unburied Casket

Brought to life by Edelman South Africa and Edelman Middle East for Women for Change, this campaign has won a  Silver Lion – Glass: Lion for Change and a Bronze Lion in the PR category.

South Africa has one of the highest femicide rates in the world. In one year, 5,578 women were murdered, a 33.8 per cent year-on-year increase.

Government promises to tackle the crisis had gone unfulfilled, leaving victims forgotten and the public despairing that their voices were being ignored. Traditional protest was no longer cutting through, but funerals hold a different power. In South African culture, funeral processions are sacred public acts of reverence, joined by communities and respected by authorities.

So, Women for Change replaced protest with mourning as pressure. The idea was The Unburied Casket, a funeral procession for the thousands of women murdered.

At its centre was a casket built 33.8 per cent larger than standard to reflect the rise in femicide, shrouded in Zulu beadwork created by local female artisans, with each bead representing a murdered woman.

Designed to be carried, witnessed, adopted and repeated, the casket made the crisis tangible, mobilised civil society and confronted government decision-makers with a symbolic refusal to let femicide remain buried.

The Ring: The Legacy Continues

This brand campaign by BigTime Creative Shop in Riyadh was honoured with a Silver Lion in the Film Craft category.

The Legacy Continues’ film was designed to honour the Ring magazine’s 104-year legacy in a way only animation could.

A trip through time, the animated film invited audiences inside a custom-built Ring Magazine museum, where meticulously recreated, like-for-like memorabilia from over a century of boxing history act as the gateway to the past.

What begins as a quiet walk through glass cases, posters, belts and artefacts soon pulls viewers into a blistering journey through the story of the sweet science. The animation exists as a living homage to the sport, its eras, icons and enduring cultural impact.

The film features animated portrayals of some of the most influential fighters ever to step into the ring, including Sugar Ray Robinson, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, Anthony Joshua, Canelo Álvarez, Katie Taylor, Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, among many others.

Rather than focusing on statistics or highlights alone, each appearance is treated as a chapter in the larger cultural story with a narration by the voice of boxing, Michael Buffer.

Laws Under Attack

This campaign for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) by TBWA/RAAD was awarded a Bronze Lion in the Media category.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched a bold campaign called Laws Under Attack, to draw global attention to the repeated targeting of hospitals and medical personnel in conflict zones.

Despite the Geneva Convention’s explicit protections established more than seven decades ago, when violence escalated in Lebanon in 2024, the last operational hospital in southern Lebanon became a direct casualty of targeted attacks.

In a powerful statement to the world, the ICRC partnered with TBWA\Raad to transform the laws being violated into an urgent plea for accountability.

Amid the rubble and scars of the Hospital, Lebanese muralist and calligrapher Ghaleb Hawila meticulously inscribed articles from the Geneva Convention onto the building’s shattered walls. Each crack and burn stood as concrete evidence of international law violations — an arresting reminder that these laws must be honoured and not ignored.

Om Badr

This campaign for KFC by TBWA\RAAD in Dubai, UAE, won a Bronze Lion in Social & Creator category.

The ‘Om Badr-12th Ingredient’ campaign didn’t start in a boardroom or a brainstorming session.

It started with Saudi TikTok users pouring Srar Hail, a spicy seasoning created by a local cook named Om Badr from the town of Hail, over their KFC chicken.

When the behaviour became a pattern, KFC and TBWA\RAAD saw a cultural signal, not a trend to hijack. Instead of mimicking the moment, they made it official: KFC partnered with Om Badr to bring her seasoning into stores as the brand’s “unofficial 12th herb and spice”, turning a community mashup into a limited-edition menu item that honoured its origin.

Untaught History Edition

This campaign for Annahar by IMPACT BBDO was awarded a Bronze Lion in the Media category.

It may seem strange, but few Lebanese students have ever been taught a complete, unified history of the country’s period following independence.

To mitigate this gap in knowledge and education, and to mark the occasion of Independence Day, An-Nahar a leading Arabic-language daily newspaper published in Lebanon, in partnership with IMPACT BBDO, launched the ‘Untaught History Edition’, another serious Cannes Lions contender.

This was a documented presentation of pivotal events in modern Lebanese history, chapters that never made it into school textbooks. The daily issue hit newsstands unlike any previous edition, its pages compiling the missing events, conflicts, turning points and major transformations that generations of Lebanese students have not studied since 1943.

The launch of the issue was not limited to the newsroom, but extended to the public sphere: in the streets of Beirut and inside schools, copies were distributed and messages were sent emphasising the need to protect history from being obscured, while social media platforms buzzed with calls to restore a national narrative that belongs to all Lebanese.

The Prime Minister of Lebanon also welcomed the initiative and considered it to be of national importance, while ministers expressed their support for the publication of a unified history volume.

The Coolest Ihram

This campaign, brought to life by Landor, Dubai, for Saudia Airlines in Saudi Arabia was handed a Bronze Lion in the PR category.

The campaign brought to life by Saudia, in partnership with Landor, introduced the world’s first high-tech cooling Ihram – a pilgrimage garment designed to enhance comfort during Hajj, when temperatures in Saudi Arabia are often quite high.

Engineered with advanced cooling fabric, it actively reduced heat on the skin by up to -2C^o, ensuring comfort and safety even in harsher conditions.  Lightweight, breathable, and moisture-wicking, the innovative Ihram also intended to protect against UV and supported pilgrims in focusing on their spiritual path without compromising comfort.

Fully compliant with religious attire requirements for men and women, it also provides UPF 50+ sun protection. The innovation debuted at Arabian Travel Market 2025 in Dubai, reflecting Saudia’s commitment to improving the pilgrim experience.

Is that a Pinntorp?

This piece of work by Memac Ogilvy, 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.

and Saudi Arabia that drew a comparison between its furniture and classic fine art pieces.

The campaign’s message was simple: Affordability and timeless quality are not mutually exclusive.

Emphasising this, IKEA Alsulaiman, in partnership with Memac Ogilvy, showcased several of its furniture that bear an uncanny resemblance to those seen in historically famous paintings.

Works by Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Hugo Simberg and Dario Barbosa feature furniture strikingly similar to those found in IKEA today – therefore delivering the idea that IKEA’s designs have stood the test of time, much like the artworks themselves.

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