The 65th edition of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity ended on a high note on Friday with India taking home 21 Lions, including two Grand Prix trophies. The performance, coming after the record 40-Lion-haul in 2017, settles the debate about India's position at the global advertisement show.
Praful Akali, founder and managing director at Medulla Communications, a Mumbai-based health care agency, said, "India has arrived. And it has arrived for good."
Coming into the festival with a strong body of work spread across agencies, India began well with four Lions, including its first Grand Prix of the week, in health care. The second Grand Prix came in creative effectiveness on Friday evening.
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It soon became clear as the week wore on that the metals, industry parlance for awards, were not flowing adequately for India. By Friday, before the final awards were announced, India had 17 Lions, including three golds.
Prateek Bhardwaj, national creative director at McCann World group, which won one of the three golds for India, said: "I wish we had won more golds. It has been a decent show by the Indian agencies so far. And the work that won was deserving."
Barring health care, direct, glass, creativity e-commerce, outdoor, print and publishing, film craft, creative effectiveness and brand experience and activation, there were a number of segments that failed to deliver for India this year. These included digital, film, public relations, and media.
graph Industry estimates are that the Indian contingent had sent 500-800 entries to the Cannes Lions of which around 150 entries were in digital alone. None of these, however, clicked for India, pointing to the standard of work in digital, said experts.
ALSO READ: Cannes Lions 2018: India clinches two Grand Prix trophies
Shamsuddin Jasani, managing director of digital agency Isobar, said part of the problem was due to the lack of an Indian digital juror at Cannes. K V Sridhar, founder and chief creative officer at HyperCollective, said the lack of cutting-edge digital work was the real issue.
"Ensuring you have 'likes' or 'shares' on social media is not enough for a digital campaign to work. The level of sophistication shown by other countries in their digital work is enormous. India pales in comparison," he added.
Digital advertising, estimated to be Rs 80-90 billion in size in India, is expected to touch Rs 150 billion in the next few years. It is ranked among the top advertising categories after television and print, implying Indian agencies will have to pull up their socks quickly if they wish to create impactful digital work. Jasani and Sridhar said this would happen in the next two years as digital agencies evolve.
On the brighter side, experts feel Indian agencies have understood what works and what doesn't in categories such as glass and health care. On Friday, the glass category gave India a gold, silver and bronze, with the metals coming for three different campaigns. This included FCB India's 'Sindoor Khela', which won the gold in glass, Cheil's 'Samsung Technical School - Seema Nagar', which won the silver, and BBDO India's '#StandbyToughMoms', which won the bronze.
ALSO READ: Cannes Lions 2018: A lot of hard work to have a good time
The only Indian campaign shortlisted in the glass category that didn't pick up a metal on Friday was DDB Mudra's 'Project Free Period'. The latter, however, did pick up a silver Lion on Monday in health care.
Rohit Ohri, group chairman and chief executive officer at FCB India, had said prior to the glass Lion awards that the Indian shortlisted works had potential to win metals, given that they ticked the right boxes as far as gender empowerment went.
"With Sindhoor Khela, the campaign was breaking an age-old tradition where the practice of smearing vermillion was not restricted to married Bengali women alone. It included widows, transgenders, divorced and single women," he said. "It is the inclusion of all that has touched a chord with the Cannes jury," he added.
Praful Akali, founder and managing director at Medulla Communications, a Mumbai-based health care agency, said, "India has arrived. And it has arrived for good."
Coming into the festival with a strong body of work spread across agencies, India began well with four Lions, including its first Grand Prix of the week, in health care. The second Grand Prix came in creative effectiveness on Friday evening.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
It soon became clear as the week wore on that the metals, industry parlance for awards, were not flowing adequately for India. By Friday, before the final awards were announced, India had 17 Lions, including three golds.
Prateek Bhardwaj, national creative director at McCann World group, which won one of the three golds for India, said: "I wish we had won more golds. It has been a decent show by the Indian agencies so far. And the work that won was deserving."
Barring health care, direct, glass, creativity e-commerce, outdoor, print and publishing, film craft, creative effectiveness and brand experience and activation, there were a number of segments that failed to deliver for India this year. These included digital, film, public relations, and media.
graph Industry estimates are that the Indian contingent had sent 500-800 entries to the Cannes Lions of which around 150 entries were in digital alone. None of these, however, clicked for India, pointing to the standard of work in digital, said experts.
ALSO READ: Cannes Lions 2018: India clinches two Grand Prix trophies
Shamsuddin Jasani, managing director of digital agency Isobar, said part of the problem was due to the lack of an Indian digital juror at Cannes. K V Sridhar, founder and chief creative officer at HyperCollective, said the lack of cutting-edge digital work was the real issue.
"Ensuring you have 'likes' or 'shares' on social media is not enough for a digital campaign to work. The level of sophistication shown by other countries in their digital work is enormous. India pales in comparison," he added.
Digital advertising, estimated to be Rs 80-90 billion in size in India, is expected to touch Rs 150 billion in the next few years. It is ranked among the top advertising categories after television and print, implying Indian agencies will have to pull up their socks quickly if they wish to create impactful digital work. Jasani and Sridhar said this would happen in the next two years as digital agencies evolve.
On the brighter side, experts feel Indian agencies have understood what works and what doesn't in categories such as glass and health care. On Friday, the glass category gave India a gold, silver and bronze, with the metals coming for three different campaigns. This included FCB India's 'Sindoor Khela', which won the gold in glass, Cheil's 'Samsung Technical School - Seema Nagar', which won the silver, and BBDO India's '#StandbyToughMoms', which won the bronze.
ALSO READ: Cannes Lions 2018: A lot of hard work to have a good time
The only Indian campaign shortlisted in the glass category that didn't pick up a metal on Friday was DDB Mudra's 'Project Free Period'. The latter, however, did pick up a silver Lion on Monday in health care.
Rohit Ohri, group chairman and chief executive officer at FCB India, had said prior to the glass Lion awards that the Indian shortlisted works had potential to win metals, given that they ticked the right boxes as far as gender empowerment went.
"With Sindhoor Khela, the campaign was breaking an age-old tradition where the practice of smearing vermillion was not restricted to married Bengali women alone. It included widows, transgenders, divorced and single women," he said. "It is the inclusion of all that has touched a chord with the Cannes jury," he added.
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