We sure are seeing more Indians appearing at the Palais des Festivals everyday – from advertising agencies to broadcasters, to publishers, media heads and advertisers – but even this ‘big’ advertising festival has failed to draw some of the key Indian agency heads to the Palais.

Prasoon Joshi was seen but O&M’s Piyush Pandey was conspicuous by his absence. Arvind Sharma (Leo Burnett), Madhukar Kamath (Mudra), Mahesh Chauhan (Rediffusion DY&R), Subhash Kamath (Bates David Enterprise) Nakul Chopra (Publicis India) – none of these heads are still at the Palais yet.

For that matter, the big global heads are also not there – Martin Sorrell, Maurice Levy, Maurice Saatchi, Michael Birkin or Tony Wright. Is the festival losing some of its sheen for these industry big wigs? We would not know but most are surely missing them.

The young Indian delegates who have not made it to the Films shortlist are upset, but they are going on with the sessions and clapping every time an Indian ad is aired.

For some of the delegates and media representatives, however, the Havas Café (which has a lot of free wine and food floating for Cannes Lions attendees), the 3.00 pm to 7.30 pm period on June 21 turned to be a bit of a disappointment.