BY ROHAN SOOD AND CHINMAY KELKAR
(India’s entrants at the Young Media Lions Competition for 2014)
It all began with one little entry. When we entered the Young Lions Media Competition back in February, little did we know that this would set us on a journey of a lifetime. Nor did this sink in when we triumphed over the other finalists to become the Young Lions from India. All we knew was that we would be going to Cannes sometime in June and represent India.
And then, bit by bit, it sank in. We were actually travelling to Cannes, the place where creativity and all things awesome come for a reboot! Our ears would perk up every time somebody uttered a word even remotely rhyming with ‘Cannes’.
But the one thing that kept us awake most nights was the immense, unbelievable opportunity to represent India at the Cannes Lions. That part was scary.
But soon, we came to realize that Cannes was not really an intimidating place. It accepts and welcomes you as an equal member of the entire advertising fraternity. And thus, amidst the buzz that an extremely intelligent crowd generates, we moved to our event, The Young Lions Media Competition.
The competition
Our brief was to create a media strategy to raise the awareness profile of a disability - deaf blindness. We would be creating this campaign for Sense International, an NGO that works with people afflicted with deaf blindness.
We were given 12 hours to come up with a game changing and practical idea to accomplish the NGO’s objective of elevating the profile of deaf blindness and enlisting youth to be campaigners for them. We crafted our idea in a way that would bring the horrors of being deaf blindness into the lives of our audience, thus creating shock, empathy and action, in that order...
The Young Lions is a platform which pits the best young talent under 30 years, across 28 countries of the globe. The standard of work and the level of talent was a big eye-opener for both of us. Though we were applauded and called out by the judges, we only ended up in the top five, missing the Lion by a whisker.
We became sponges
Only after the competition was over did we get the time to see Cannes in all its glory, the mindaltering and awe-inspiring work from across the world and the people who create it. We shrugged off our despair at not having won a Lion and landed at the festival for a packed schedule of talks, seminars, workshops and panel discussions.
We thought it would be too much gyaan. But over the next four days, every word at every talk, seminar and workshop was a revelation in itself. Add to this the wonderful Mediacom Suite at the Martinez, with fireside chats featuring the who’s who of our industry, awesomely curated sessions and a chance to watch a World Cup game on the giant screens with the cream of the advertising world! The Mediacom Suite gave us the chance to be part of an exclusive schedule of events featuring an amazing line-up of speakers including Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP; Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo!; Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn and Shane Smith, CEO, Vice.
Be it Jason Silva’s Mindtrip or Neil Degrasse Tyson and his quirky genius or David Droga’s creative masterclass, none of it was simple gyaan. It was an excursion into the minds of some of the greatest ad geniuses who have walked this earth. Simply put, we became sponges for eight days, absorbing all we could. And then ended our first (and hopefully not our last) trip to the greatest colosseum of global advertising. Au Revoir.
Feedback: chinmay.kelkar@mediacom.com
