By Meghna Sharma
“And the award goes to…” Hold your breath because it’s time for the Oscars of the advertising world. Who doesn’t like awards and rewarded for the hard work they do? So, the who’s who of the advertising world are keeping their fingers crossed for the Cannes Lions 58th International Advertising Festival (IAF).
The seven-day festival, which boasts of the world’s only truly global meeting place for creative professionals in the communications industry, sees thousands of entries to celebrate the best of creativity in brand communication, discuss industry issues and network with one another. This year the event is scheduled for 19–25 June.
As professionals get ready to wish their mates luck, many others can’t wait to rub shoulders with the biggest names in the industry. WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell, News Corporation’s James Murdoch, TBWA Worldwide’s Jean-Marie Dru, DDB Worldwide’s Bob Scarpelli, MPG’s Maria Luisa Francoli Plaza, Keith Rose of Velocity Films and many others will be there. Even some of the biggies of the Indian creative and media industry will be sitting at the jury’s table.
Out of the total 28,828 entries, as many as 1,177 (13 categories) are from India. Last year, India won 17 Lions which was a step down after a great show previously. The advertising industry here has certainly come a long way and expectations are understandably high this time too.People have already doffing their prediction hats. “Over the years, Cannes predictions have become a Leo Burnett tradition.
The compilation is inspirational and it is a huge morale boost for agencies to see their work in this reel before the Cannes. The compilation is fairly accurate in earmarking the Lions. This year, Leo Burnett India’s Gandhiji font is a strong contender at the Cannes,” said KV Sridhar (Pops) of Leo Burnett.
Many others are superstitious and don’t want to count their chickens before they hatch. Others are hopeful that all their entries stand a fair chance of winning. “Awards are a way of rewarding creative, rewarding an agency for the work they do. Every single entry we send, we hope and believe is good enough. We have a very stringent system doing this,” said Jishnu Sen of Grey Group Asia-Pacific.
May the best work win.
AMBIENCE PUBLICIS
Park Avenue
Direct mailer to promote launch of Park Avenue anti-perspirant with distributors. Half the pages in 250 copies of mens’ magazines were wet, so after drying they had a wet, sweaty look. The insert at this point said, “The end of perspiration.” The rest of the pages remained dry and clean-looking.
Kansai Nerolac Paints
Protection for walls – at home and on Facebook. Kansai Nerolac Paints commented on spam that their Facebook members received, promoting the idea of “wall protection”.
Pronto Couriers
A direct mailer targeted at administration managers of various organisations who usually decide on the choice of their courier services. By design, a broken vase was delivered to them through other leading courier services. When they opened the package, along with the broken vase they found a message that read, “Wouldn’t have happened with us. - Pronto Couriers.”
BrandSTIK
Here is a low-budget idea that capitalises on the biggest differentiator between Brand STIK and other global players like Transcend and SanDisk - Superior storage capacity. To bring this fact to life, we made massive USB connectors and fixed them on the rooftops of multiplexes and buildings, making the entire structure appear like giant USB flash drives. The copy read, “64 GB”. An idea that truly stands out to give the right message.
Vacha Trust
The popular “Hangman” game was recreated as interactive banners to highlight the fact that over a million girl babies die every year before birth because of a social bias towards boys. Surprisingly, this discrimination exists as much in urban India as it does in rural areas. After playing the game the player is surprised to find that when the head, torso and hands are formed, the figure resembles the female symbol, and the words to be guessed are related to gender selection.
GREY INDIA
“Honestly, predicting what’s going to win at Cannes is more difficult than predicting what can win on a roulette table. That said I feel that entries like the Begging Grooms Project, Oath Pads and the Magic Drain Opener are fresh and stand a chance. What’s more, they’re not traditional print or TV entries and have been entered into more than one category, namely; direct, promo and media, which should hopefully increase their chances.” Amit Akali – National Creative Director
LEO BURNETT
Bajaj Electricals “Fold-a-box”
How packaging design can change your life. Iron packaging turned into a device which can help you fold any ironed garment effortlessly and more importantly precisely.
Gandhiji font
Breakthrough idea of crafting fonts from the iconic spectacles of Mahatma Gandhi.
Heinz “Sketch-Up”
Ketchup is supposed to add fun to eating – here, the idea does that even before kids start eating. An activity which engages and invite every kid to participate in adding fun to food with ketchup with Sketch-Up. A simple and delightful idea to sell a squeeze pack.
Samna
Radio spot. Most often street kids, who have no one to take care and advice often have to become advisers to themselves. Very well crafted and a powerful idea.
Tide “Fold a stain”
More for less is the proposition. The idea of folding a big stain into a small pack to demonstrate more for less invites people to participate, discover how joyfully you can wash away the stains.
McCANN (MUMBAI)
Videocon
Simply spells out what the product does – download a whole lot of books onto your phone. And is mesmerising in its execution as you see a sky full of books getting sucked into one small phone.
Sanitol
At a time when we are being bombarded with execution and side-splitting humour, the cleaning lady walks across your screen with a simple message, a simple insight and an even simpler execution.
Shivam Mattress
A potent mix of the funny and the insightful. The detailing of the characters further adds to the wicked humour.
Odomos
When you can take something so obvious and make it so lateral in its creative take, you have a potential winner in your hands. And it just helps that it’s called Clap to start with.
Western Union
Refreshing campaign that makes the geographical transfer point without a currency note. The execution further adds to the beauty of the idea.
