Look up the Indian ads headed for Cannes Lions 2012

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Here’s a showcase of some of the Indian entries entered for the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, beginning on June 17

For the creative world, all roads lead to the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the most gifted people in the domain converge to vie for recognition for their creative endeavours. In its 59th year now, the Cannes Lion has introduced two new categories - Mobile and Branded entertainment. The festival, being held from June 17-23, 2012, is an event most anticipated by the ad fraternity in the Indian sub-continent too. Each year, more than 9,000 members of the global creative communications industries come together to be inspired and educated at the Cannes Lions.

This year, a record 34,301 entries from 87 countries have been submitted, which is a significant jump of 19% over last year. Of these, 1,182 pieces of work have been entered from India. Last year, Indian agencies had sent 1,177 entries to Cannes. The highest number of entries from India is in the Press category with 266 pieces of work competing for a Lion. Two hundred and nineteen entries have been sent in Outdoor, 134 in Design, 130 in Media, 108 in Direct and 85 in Promo and Activation categories. Surprisingly, Indian agencies have shown less confidence in other categories. There are 56 entries in Films, 55 in Radio, 41 in Film Craft, 27 in Cyber, 19 in PR, 18 in Branded Content and Entertainment, 17 in Titanium & Integrated, five in Mobile and two in Creative Effectiveness.

Let’s take a look at how India has fared in Cannes over the years - 2008 was a great year for India with 23 Lions, including a Grand Prix; this winning streak remained in 2009 with 25 Lions, but 2010 put the brakes on what would have been a victorious hat-trick for India with a total tally of 17 Lions. But India bounced back with a tally of 24 Lions in 2011, the players leading the pack being Mudra, BBDO India and Ogilvy.

As the excitement builds up this year, India seems to be a land of buzzing creativity. Check out some of the works Indian admen are taking to Cannes in the next few pages. Meanwhile, let us hope India wins an all-time high record tally of Lions. But as in all great competitions, may the best win.

CHALLENGES FOR INDIAN CREATIVES

Though one sees great ideas and talent emerging from India, we face a unique set of challenges. Digital seems to be the buzzword in India, but we are still in the early stages compared to the global scenario. “We are way behind when it comes to digital integration of an idea. Be it any medium, once you link back the digital response, it suddenly looks far bigger and authentic compared to our Indian entries. You do a direct, promo, Outdoor, TV or Radio and the world links any of these to a social medium and they start the race a few meters ahead of us as we do not have that kind of support from the social media,” says Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder, Taproot India.

Novel ideas seem to be a high point for India, but they are not enough to bag the metals. “When it comes to sheer quality of ideas, we are right up there, competing with some of the best in the world. Where Indian agencies often fall short is the execution of our Print and Outdoor work, and packaging of our case studies,” comments KV Sridhar, National Creative Director of Leo Burnett.Amit Akali, National Creative Director of Grey India, shares an interesting perspective. “Agencies in India tend to separate the work they do for awards from the work they do regularly. This is easy to pull off when it comes to picking up awards in Print, Outdoor, Film and Radio, because you just need to execute it and obviously get the client to support and release it. But when it comes to a promo/activation or a titanium kind of activity, you can’t just do it for awards. If you do, it’ll show in the scale of execution. Therefore, to win the big awards at Cannes, we’ll have to bring out out-of-the box work that actually solves a client’s problem on a regular basis.”

AGENCIES FEATURED:

DDB MUDRA

TBWA INDIA

BBDO INDIA

BBH INDIA

TAPROOT INDIA

PUBLICIS INDIA

LEO BURNETT INDIA

CONTRACT

GREY INDIA

HAPPY CREATIVE SERVICES