CANNES LIONS '15: McCann and BBDO lead Indian Metal tally

Cannes Lions Festival of creativity 2015, as is the trend, saw discussions on creativity, emerging trends and of course there was ample future gazing. 

Indian presence at the most sought after advertising festival was marked by a huge gathering of advertising professionals and more – however, we ended up picking less than half the number of metals we did at Cannes 2014.  In the year 2014, total tally for India was 27:  Five Golds, Nine Silvers and thirteen bronze.

The number this time went down to 13 metals in all. Two additional ones for Indian campaigns came from overseas agencies.

McCann India picked the highest number of metals as far as Indian agencies go. It picked up four silvers, three of them for its campaign titled ‘Warning’ created for Essel Group – Dish TV. The campaign consisted of three ads titled Basement, Sofa and Puddle.  It picked a Silver Outdoor Lion for the whole campaign and another one for the Basement ad. It also picked a silver Press Lion for the Puddle and Basement ads. The other brand for which the agency picked a Silver Press Lion is Dabur’s Gastrina for the campaign titled ‘Musical Instrument’. Prasoon Joshi, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, McCann Worldgroup India said, "I'm quite happy with our performance. Winning at Cannes is always special for me. We have consistently done well there for many years. Unfortunately I could not attend the festival this year and missed the excitement.”

As for the metal count going down he states, “As far as Indian advertising industry’s performance is concerned unlike many I am not too worried, we always have great ideas coming out of India maybe more emphasis on craft should be our learning from this year.”

The second agency that created Buzz at Cannes this year is BBDO India. It picked up three lions in all, one of them a Grand Prix! Two of its awards came in the inaugural Glass Lion for work that addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice.  Grand Prix Glass Lion came for its campaign titled ‘Touch The Pickle; created for Whisper Sanitary Napkins, P&G India. Silver in the same category, yet again came for P&G India, this time for the campaign ‘Share the Load’ created for ArielMatic. ‘Touch the Pickle’ also picked a bronze in Media category.

Indian agencies at Cannes 2015

Other two awards for Indian clients came from Lowe & Partners Worldwide London for Unilever India (Kan Khajura Tesan) and Grey Group, Singapore for Talwar Bindi & Neelvasant Medical foundation (Lifesaving Dot).