Asia-Pacific entries to Cannes Lions drops just 10% despite worldwide decline of 20%

June 3 2009, 8:26 am | BY Kim Shaw | 3 Comments

The Cannes Lions seem to be recession proof from an Asian perspective given the breakdowns of entry levels to the festival this year. While overall entries to Cannes are down 19.9% entries from Asia-Pacific are only down 10.4%, something that is no doubt pleasing to the Festival organisers. A fall of just over 10% is an amazing result given the depressed economic position of the industry in our region and all the negative talk of cutbacks amongst networks.

Asia-Pacific entries this year totaled 5157 compared to 5757 last year.

The number of entries from Singapore this year is 458, which is just 17 entries less than the 475 last year. Thailand entered 406 entries compared to 482 last year. India dropped to 982 entries from 1109 in 2008 and Japan fell from 957 to 747 entries.

Surprisingly, Hong Kong and The Philippines actually increased their entry levels this year. Hong Kong’s entries jumped almost 100% – from 154 in 2008 to 310 this year. Entries from Manila increased to 202 from 167 twelve months ago.

On a world wide scale Cannes Lions entries from their three most prolific countries have drastically declined. The USA is down 25.2% to 2726 entries. Brazil is down a huge 38.3% to 1519 and the UK is down 24.4% to 1316 entries. 

Below is a country-by-country breakdown. Last year’s entry levels are in brackets.

  • Australia – 784 (822)
  • China – 438 (467)
  • Chinese Taipei – 41 (73)
  • Hong Kong – 310 (154)
  • India – 982 (1109)
  • Indonesia – 60 (56)
  • Japan – 747 (957)
  • Korea – 168 (292)
  • Malaysia – 236 (283)
  • New Zealand – 290 (376)
  • Pakistan – 4 (12)
  • Singapore – 458 (465)
  • Thailand – 406 (482)
  • The Philippines – 202 (167)
  • Vietnam – 31 (32)