Cannes 2019: What went wrong for India, especially after two good years?

Indian advertisement contingent failed to bag top honours and the scorecard was the lowest in five years

Sometimes a simple, but effective idea can go a long way. The Cannes Ad Fest, which concluded a week ago, is replete with examples of communication that set just such an idea at the core and used technology and art to expand it, to bag the top honours. But none of this came from Indian agencies, whose scorecard was the lowest in five years at 18 lions. The Indian contingent did manage to get the yellow metal on the final awards night, for a campaign by FCB for a school (Millennium National School) in the category of sustainable development goals.
 
With just five silver and 12 bronze lions apart from the solitary gold, this is the poorest tally that the Indian contingent has ever run up at the festival. What went wrong, especially after two good years at the festival?
 
In 2017, Indian agencies took home 40 lions, its highest ever. And in 2018, the Indian contingent had 21 lions and two Grand Prix trophies. Praful Akali, founder and managing director, Medulla Communications, says, “We have miles to go on how we creatively interpret data and weave it into our campaigns. While we are strong when it comes to upholding our values and culture, I think what jurors at Cannes were looking out for this year were campaigns that could tell a human story with cutting-edge technology backing it. That is a gap we have to fill.”

Silver Lions for Gillette in Entertainment

 
Take the example of McCann Shanghai's work for pharmaceutical major GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is among the top three causes of death in China, is both under-treated and under-diagnosed in the country. To build awareness, McCann Shanghai created a breath test that combined Chinese blow-art and pulmonology in an easy-to-use mobile application. The ‘Breath of Life’ won the Grand Prix in the pharma category, giving an indication, said experts, of what jurors at Cannes wanted: Advertising that solved real issues.
 
Take one more example. Technology major Microsoft sought to remedy the disadvantage that children with disabilities, who enjoyed playing video games, faced. It created an easy-to-use controller for these children, but needed an agency to communicate the message effectively. In came McCann New York, who advertised the controllers during the Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National (American) Football League, with a simple idea: We all win. The campaign was a Grand Prix winner in the brand experience and activation category.

Vicks for Single Market Campaign in Film

 
While Indian agencies did have some endearing pieces of work to their credit  including ‘Barbershop Girls’ for brand Gillette and ‘Touch of Care–One in a Million’ for Vicks (P&G), this was hardly adequate, said experts. “In an emerging market such as India, there is enough and more to talk about when it comes to gender empowerment, parity, the need for empathy towards the sick, elderly, poor and disabled. The challenge is how we do combine all these elements into a compelling idea,” says KV Sridhar, founder and chief creative officer, Hyper Collective. “What appealed to an earlier generation of jurors at Cannes may not, now. The sooner we see this, the better it will be,” he says.
 
Both ‘Barbershop Girls’ and ‘Touch of Care’ picked up silver lions, but there were no winners in the glass lions this year, a category that has delivered a number of trophies in the last few editions.
 
Even digital, where Indian agencies had sent a number of entries, saw fewer conversions. Among the winners was Dentsu Webchutney, which bagged a total of six lions, including one silver and five bronze lions. For Swiggy, it used Instagram’s voice feature to order food items and for Flipkart, it created a bot using Google Assistant that could bargain during the e-tailer’s Big Billion Day sale.