It’s a slow but consistent season for the Indian contingent at the ongoing Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Maintaining a steady pace, it added three more metals to its laurels, consisting one Gold and two Silvers.  

The Gold Lion was picked by Leo Burnett for Gatorade ‘Turf Finder’ in creative data lions for data-enhanced creativity. It is the campaign’s second win at the Cannes Lions 2024. It had earlier picked a bronze in entertainment lions for the sports category.

The campaign is a tech-based intervention in partnership with Google Maps to provide open playing spaces to people living in crowded cities of India. The app analyses 20 years’ worth of historic traffic data and real-time insights to predict when roads go empty, turning them into playgrounds. 

The on-ground turfs used in the campaign were modular, configured to be assembled and dismantled within 20 mins to ensure maximum play time and give the roads back in time for traffic. These turfs became urban community playgrounds, reimagining open spaces for play unlike anything before in the world. 

The two Silvers came from PR Lions wherein FCB Kinnect got its first metal for the season for HDFC Bank’s ‘Lulumelon EOSS’ campaign for use of events and stunts. The other winning campaign was VML’s ‘Sing to Remember’ for Coca Cola under the single-market campaign subcategory. It was VML’s second win for the campaign, having won a bronze in the entertainment lions for music category yesterday.  

FCB Kinnect’s campaign for HDFC, which featured Nora Fatehi and Anu Menon, revolved around making people aware of online scams. They created a fake brand called ‘Lulumelon’ and targeted ads for it creating a lot of buzz on social media. They used a deepfake version of Nora announcing big discounts. But when people clicked on the brand link, they were directed to a website where ‘Vigil Aunty’ or Anu Menon talked about ad frauds.  

It was all done before releasing the ad film in which Nora revealed the intent behind creating this brand, making people aware of cyber frauds that could happen in the name of online shopping and discounts.  

Elated with the win, Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, FCB Group India & South Asia said, “This is a great validation for the work we are doing for HDFC bank over the years. This is a long running platform that FCB Kinnect has built for fraud prevention. I am so happy because this is real work for a large brand. Big congratulations to our teams and clients who’ve made this possible.”  

On the other hand, VML’s campaign, ‘Sing To Remember’ for Coca Cola was an effort aimed at preserving India’s linguistic diversity. To launch Coke Studio, a beloved music platform, in India after an eight year’s gap, Coca Cola collaborated with up-and-coming Gujarati language artists, Aditya Gadhvi and Achint Thakkar, to create “Khalasi” - a song that not only entertained but also served as a cultural statement. The campaign ,using influencers, choreographers and singers along with the topicality of Navratri, got a billion people to dance, sing and celebrate in Gujarati – a language otherwise not in focus.  

 Celebrating the big win, Mukund Olety, CCO, VML India said, “It feels amazing to be recognized for a piece of work that has created a dent in culture. There are billions of people grooving to Khalasi and now we are as well holding 2 big metal lions in hand. In PR, it’s a Gold considering there were no Golds given in the category. This is for the team that is putting in the hours and doing some amazing work on the brand. This is for our clients at The Coca Cola Company who dream big, push hard and make epic things happen.”  

There were no wins for India in the five other categories for which results were announced on Wednesday, namely Creative B2B, Creative Data, Direct, Media and Social & Influencer Lions.

Here’s how the final award tally looks like this far:

More Shortlists Added

 Along with three metals, the Indian contingent also added five more shortlists to its kitty under sustainable development goals. 

Leo Burnett got two shortlists for Whisper’s ‘Period Science for Moms’ campaign under good-health & well-being and quality eductation subcategories and one more for ‘Drops of Joy’ campaign for Lay’s under responsible consumption & production subcategory. 

The other two shortlists were for McCann – first in the good health & well-being subcategory for its most successful campaign this year, Buckaroo’s ‘Fit My Feet’, and the second in the gender equality subcategory for ESAF Small Finance Bank’s ‘Dabba Savings Account’. 

These were the final set of shortlists for the season at Cannes Lions 2024. India’s total shortlist count stands at 59 as compared to 77 last year. It was despite a small uptick in the entries sent, 826 this year against 809 of 2023.

Here’s how the final shortlist tally looks like this year for India

What’s in for Day04

 India will be chasing more metals today as the results for creative effectiveness, creative strategy and brand experience & activation categories are set to be announced. The country has 10 shortlists across these categories and several promising campaigns are in the running. The contenders for the day include Leo Burnett for Gatorade’s ‘Turf Finder’, Spotify’s ‘Feel The Music’ and Whisper’s ‘Period Science for Moms’; Ogilvy Mumbai with its international partners for Cadbury’s ‘There’s A Glass & A Half in Everyone’; Ogilvy for Vodafone Idea Ltd’s ‘Vi Human Testing Network’ and Cadbury 5 Star’s ‘Erase Valentine’s Day’ , Mc Cann for Buckaroo’s ‘Fit My Feet’; and FCB India for Stir Magazine’s ‘Untangling The Politics of Hair’. 

The winners for creative business transformation lions, creative commerce lions, innovation lions, and luxury & lifestyle lions will also be announced by sadly India has no shortlists in these categories.