The Hindu Group wins two awards at the INMA Global Media Awards 2020

It was a double win for The Hindu Group at the INMA (International News Media Association) Global Media Awards 2020. The group secured the first place for its campaign ‘Cadbury Sweet Kondattam’ for Client Mondelez India in the category ‘Best Idea to Acquire or Retain Advertising Clients’ and the second place for ‘Stay home. Stay vigilant.’ campaign for ‘Best Initiative in response to COVID-19’.

Cadbury Sweet Kondattam
Cadbury Sweet Kondattam, for a new client Mondelez India, was an end-to-end brand solutions campaign conceptualised to induce the taste of Cadbury Dairy Milk by integrating it with popular sweets, snacks and tiffin items. Prior to the campaign, the team decided to delve into Chennai’s rich and varied food culture. Interesting insights about the city’s affinity for sweets, the much prevalent ‘tiffin’ culture and how the snacking preferences lean towards savouries. Hybrid snacking across sweets, savouries and tiffin items was observed as a nascent trend and hence an opportunity for Cadbury Dairy Milk to invest and expand. A seven-week long campaign witnessed tie-ups with popular food retailers to incorporate Cadbury Diary Milk in locally popular sweets and snacks to engage the masses to eat and vote for their favourites, a consumer cookery contest, sampling drives and other activities were also organised. Renowned celebrities Chef Damu, Divyadarshini and other popular movie, television stars were roped in for the local connect. This win is a testimony to The Hindu Group’s ability to create hyper-local solutions for global brands.

"Our partnership with The Hindu helped in continuing our mission to become a part of the cultural fabric of Tamil Nadu. Cadbury Sweet Kondattam was an initiative jointly conceived by Mondelez and The Hindu to make Cadbury and chocolate integral to snacking & sweet occasions in the city. The initiative was very successful and The Hindu was instrumental in bringing local insight and execution muscle to deliver scale and noticeability in Chennai," said Anil Viswanathan, Director – Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India.

Stay home. Stay vigilant.
The group’s campaign, ‘Stay home. Stay vigilant.’, was a result of the group putting consumer safety and wellbeing ahead of everything else during this global pandemic and crisis. Through this, consumers were encouraged to stay at home by continuously keeping them engaged. The group took steps to protect readers against fake news by delivering authentic, verified and useful information, and helped them stay vigilant. The campaign inspired the masses as it brought together celebrities from all walks of lives who reinforced the importance of staying at home and also engaged and entertained through multiple live shows.

Suresh Balakrishna, Chief Revenue Officer, The Hindu Group said, “As an organisation, we have understood our consumers well – be it informing, engaging or entertaining them. Through our integrated solutions, we enabled our client Mondelez India to connect with the people of Tamil Nadu. Through ‘Stay home. Stay vigilant.’, we continued to be with our readers as we face the biggest tests of our time. We are happy about the wins at INMA 2020 Global Media Awards as they validate our constant efforts to be consumer-centric. This is yet another encouragement to keep us going as there is much to do in the times to come – to rise up with hope!”

International News Media Association (INMA), announced the winners of the INMA Global Media Awards 2020 in a global broadcast recently. The competition rewarded innovation in building news brands, platform excellence, audience development, advertising sales and nurturing corporate culture. This year, the competition received 922 entries for 16 categories from 262 news brands in 44 countries. In April this year, INMA re-opened the competition and added the pandemic response category to highlight the structured initiatives by media companies to instil hope, inspire trust, bring communities together and encourage interactivity and engagement during today’s pandemic.