At Cannes, Indian ad firms roar with 27 metals

A Grand Prix and Agency of the Year make this year's outing at the ad fest one of the best for agencies from the country

For Indian advertising agencies, 2016 will go down as one of its best outings at Cannes.

As the curtains fell on the 63rd edition of the advertisement festival on Saturday, Indian agencies celebrated well into the night. Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), BBDO and production house Early Man Films took home three metals or Lions in film and film craft.

This performance helped India pile up a total of 27 metals — more than double of its 2015 tally, and equal to the figure in 2014.

“Metal” is sector parlance for awards.

But what made this year special was a Grand Prix in the glass category, the second in a row for India, and the title of “Agency of the Year” in health care, the first for an Indian agency at Cannes.

“Without a doubt, it has been one of the best years for Indian agencies at Cannes. There were wins across categories and by a larger number of agencies. For me, that is the big take-away: That there were more contributors to India’s show this year. It was truly unity in diversity. We should continue building on this momentum,” said Josy Paul, chairman & chief creative officer, BBDO India.

BBDO — along with Mindshare, Medulla, O&M and L&K Saatchi & Saatchi — led from the front.

Other contributors to the India story included Rediffusion Y&R (for Tata Motors’ Dipper Condoms, targeted at truck drivers to help them practice safe sex), J Walter Thompson, McCann Worldgroup, Leo Burnett, Contract, PHD and Early Man Films.

Among campaigns, BBDO’s “Share the Load”, which advocated gender equality at home by depicting fathers doing household chores such as washing clothes, won through the week.

This campaign, created for Procter & Gamble’s Ariel Matic detergent, struck metal in glass (bagged a gold), cyber (bronze), creative effectiveness (bronze), entertainment (bronze) and film (bronze) categories.

O&M’s ‘Beauty Tips by Reshma’ for non-government organisation Make Love Not Scars, which helps rehabilitate acid-attack victims, was the other big winner of the week with two golds, in glass and film, respectively.

O&M’s film was hailed for the use of a real-life acid-attack victim, Reshma, as a model for the beauty tutorial she presents in the ad. Besides driving home the point of what acid attacks can do, the message of stopping the sale of acid was woven into the script.

“I am happy,” Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, India and South Asia, said over telephone from Cannes. “The film would not have clicked if Reshma had not participated in it. This, combined with the hard work of the youngsters at O&M (who created the campaign), is what paid off.”

The other show-stoppers included Mindshare’s Glass Grand Prix winner “6 Pack Band” for Hindustan Unilever’s Brooke Bond Red Label and Medulla’s campaign “Last Words” for the Indian Association of Palliative Care.

This campaign shows real-life working and retired nurses recounting the last words of their dying patients. The message is about how terminally-ill patients should be spending more time with family than nurses, which palliative care is all about. This campaign won two golds and a silver helping Medulla take home a total of seven lions in health care. Medulla eventually won the Agency of the Year title in health care for its performance.

“We were ranked third last year among health care agencies that won at Cannes. This year, we topped the list, so that feels special,” said Praful Akali, MD and founder, Medulla Communications.

“Delegates not only from India, but other countries too were celebrating our wins, which told us that our work had a struck a chord with them,” he said.