Motivate Val Morgan, the official representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in the UAE, has completed a victory tour celebrating the country’s 2025 winners.
In early September, Chief Operating Officer Avinash Udeshi and the Motivate Val Morgan team visited the four Dubai agencies that brought Lions back from Cannes this year – VML Dubai, FP7 McCann, Impact BBDO and Leo Dubai – presenting them with their trophies.
The first stop was at VML Dubai, which picked up four Lions in total. These included a Silver and two Bronzes for HungerStation’s The Social Feed, as well as a Bronze for Dubai Tourism’s Safe at 3AM. The awards were handed over by Motivate Val Morgan to VML Dubai CEO Faysal Abdul Malak and Chief Creative Officer Aricio Fortes, joined by their team.
Next on the tour was FP7 McCann Dubai, the local agency with the highest tally of wins, collecting seven Lions overall. These included a Gold, Silver and Bronze for Puck’s Recipe for Change, alongside four Bronzes – two for Read Better, and one each for Not For First Dates and Sponsored Balls. CEO Tarek Miknas and Chief Creative Officer Federico Fanti were joined by their team in collecting the awards.
The tour then stopped at Impact BBDO, recognised as MENA Network of the Year for the seventh consecutive year. The agency received four Lions, including a Gold, Silver and Bronze for Annahar Newspaper’s The New President, and a Bronze for UN Women’s Child Wedding Cards. The trophies were collected by BBDO EMEA Chairman Dani Richa, Impact BBDO UAE CEO Ghassan Kassabji, Managing Director Jad Rabahi and Chief Creative Officer Ali Rez, together with the wider team.
The final stop of the tour was at Publicis Groupe’s Dubai office to meet Leo Dubai, where Publicis Communications UAE CEO Nathalie Gevresse and Executive Creative Director Muhammad Ali joined the team in celebrating their Bronze Lion in the Print & Publishing category for NBA India’s Jordan 23.
In total, the victory tour saw 16 Lions handed out across the four agencies — two Golds, three Silvers and 11 Bronzes, marking the UAE’s 2025 tally at Cannes.
