By Shubhangi Mehta
In its 59th year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which will take place from June 17 till 23, is considered the largest worldwide gathering of advertising professionals, designers, digital innovators and marketers.
Every year in June, around 9,000 registered delegates from 90 countries visit the fest to celebrate the best of creativity in brand communication, discuss industry issues and network with one another. Thousands of ads from all over the world are showcased and judged.
Inspired by the International Film Festival, staged in Cannes since the late 1940s; a group of cinema screen advertising contractors from the Screen Advertising World Association (Sawa) felt that the makers of advertising films should be recognised similarly. They established the International Advertising Film Festival, the first of which took place in Venice in September 1954, with 187 entries from 14 countries. The lion of the Piazza San Marco in Venice was the inspiration for the Lion trophy.
Cannes Lions juries are drawn from experts in each field from around the world. Each jury is headed by a jury president. They judge submissions in Film, Film Craft, Media, Press, Outdoor, Cyber, Promo & Activation, Direct, Design, Radio, PR, Creative Effectiveness and Titanium and Integrated.
Inspiring creativity is at the heart of Cannes Lions. The Festival is where creative professionals come to debate, learn and be inspired; where the greatest industry honours are bestowed; where those pushing creative communications forward are celebrated. Amongst the featured agencies this year are names such as BBDO India, Leo Burnett India, DDB Mudra, TBWA India, JWT India, BBH India, Taproot India, Publicis India, Contract Advertising, Grey India , Happy Creative Service and Ogilvy India.
Since the past couple of years, India has been doing fairly well at Cannes due to which the expectations are increasing with each passing year. Hence MxM India tried to find out what the experts think are India’s chances in the run for metals at Cannes Lions this year.
 - Russel Barret
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 - Ashish Khazaanchi
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 - Kartik Iyer
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 - KV Sridhar
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 - Rajiv Rao
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 - Senthil Kumar
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 - Jishnu Sen
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 - Josy Paul
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Russel Barret, Managing Partner, BBH India, said: “India matches up to any other country when it comes to creativity. What we lack is the space between ideas and execution. The factors that affect it are probably budget and time. I am really hopeful that we will win just like any other agency which sends their work. Though out of all the Indian work that I have seen, the Tide (print) by Leo Burnett India and OOH Iconic poster by Mudra are my favourite works.
Ashish Khazaanchi, NCD, Publicis Ambience was optimistic: “Our country has had some good and some not so good years at Cannes, but there has never been an extremely dreadful year for our country. India is amongst the countries having ‘great creative talent’ and the proof is the Grand Prix in the past. Our agency has done wonderfully at Cannes, but this year our focus was mostly on agency growth. My preferred work for this year would be Fox Crime ad and Gandhi booklet by Leo Burnett.
Karthik Iyer, Owner, Happy Creative Service felt awesome: “Any agency would, to get recognition from the world’s best creative leaders on a global scale. India never lacked ideas, for sure. But I think more attention can be paid to craft. That’s an area we always get beaten, either because of the lack of time, budget or both. When it comes to my favourite work, there are so many it would be unfair to point a few. But a few that come to mind – Coke Studio Entry of the music from Coke bottles DM, I absolutely love that piece, Fox Crime should pick up something, Bajaj Exhaust fans and Sour Marbels to name a few.
KV Sridhar aka Pops, NCD, Leo Burnett, India maintained: “The only place where our country lacks is exploring the new medium ideas such as digital. We focus more on the conventional mediums rather than the non-conventional ones, unlike countries in Latin America. The chances of India collecting metals at Cannes Lions are more in the categories like design, photography and sound design. For me the magic creators are Killer Jeans, Tide and Bajaj. I feel this will be a good year and we might get close to 20 odd metals, but we cannot regard it as a record breaking year. I’m hoping for the best for Leo – especially for properties like Tide, Coke Studio, a couple of Radio spots and Thums Up for branded content.
Rajiv Rao, NCD, Ogilvy India said: “I think Indian work is absolutely fantastic, hence it does so well in the Indian market. The scenario in our country is such that we need to do a specific kind of work to appeal to our consumers, hence we do not appeal to the global jury at times. But that is not because of the quality of our work. All we need is to bridge our work in such a way that we appeal to the local masses as well as the international juries.”
Senthil Kumar, National Creative Director JWT India was of the belief that they can only do their best and hope for God and the jury to do the rest: “Sure we have the potential but until the jury agrees, we won’t be striking heavy metal there. I have always believed that Indians are the most creative people on earth. We have to be more unabashedly Indian in our ideas and even in our ‘God is in the details’ execution. If only we’d stop aping the West and strive to unleash something very Indian every time, we’d have better chance at hunting down Gold Lions. This year, our creative hopes would ride on the following ideas: The Times of India Kerala Launch, RIN Eraser, Lifestyle’s Baddie bags, Nokia Recycle Films, and some other ideas that may just surprise the audience.
From a potential point of view, these ads are the ones that could hunt down a few Lions for India this year: Google Chrome Tanjore, Mumbai Mirror, The Times of India Kerala Film & IPL 5 Carnival in Film Craft, The FOX Crime Series in Digital, the Nokia Recycle Viral Films, the Coffee House print work, the 3D Audi Website…
Jishnu Sen, chief operating officer, Grey India, put forth his view: “The reason that the metal tally for India isn’t as high as some Latin American country is because of the international jury. Our work is always great and creative. Grey has done some great work this year with Killer Jeans and Cupid Condom. We are hoping to pick up some metals.”
Josy Paul, Chairman and NCD, BBDO India felt: “India is a late entrant at Cannes, and taking that in consideration, we are doing fairly well and growing year by year. I am expecting the Gold and Silver winners from Abbys to do well at Cannes as well. As for my agency, Cannes is like a lottery, last year we did not expect to do so well, but we did. This year too, we are hoping our Gillette campaign would do well.”
Main image: www.CannesLions.com