Message or medium?

Can technology and platforms ever replace the magic of powerful story telling? Not quite. The 61st edition of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity came to a close recently and it was about some compelling stories from small towns. Stories that came forth through a radio mobile service or a Twitter handle. Or through stickers or through a montage of colourful crowd sourced moments. These stories had the conviction to reach and connect with the forgotten man sitting in the remotest part of our world.

In the faraway villages of Bihar and Jharkhand booms the centipede radio or ?Kan Khajura Tesan?. Mainstream media has yet to make inroads in this part of the world. The only source of entertainment and information for the people here is this voluntary mobile radio service provided by consumer goods company Hindustan Unilever (HUL). The service is part of HUL?s marketing campaign aimed at reaching consumers in media dark areas. The station, on the one hand, provides much-welcome entertainment to consumers and on the other, helps HUL broadcast its brand messages to consumers who can?t be reached through traditional media networks.

The station reaches out to more than 11 million subscribers in the hinterland. ?Areas that were otherwise termed media dark are now entertainment enlightened,? says Priya Nair, vice president, HUL. ?In total, we have had 180 million minutes of engagement with our consumers and our ads have been heard 100 million times,? she said. Piloted in Bihar and Jharkhand, the service has now been extended to other parts of the country.

HUL?s service found plenty of interested listeners in Cannes, too and so enthralled were they by the idea that it ended up winning three golds in the use of audio, use of mobile and response and real-time activity categories. The entry also won a bronze in the branded entertainment category. Joseph George, chief executive at Lowe Lintas and Partners, the agency that led the creative execution, said that he was pleased with all the attention and appreciation that the campaign received. ?This is work that has been done on a significant scale and with the intention of bringing about a difference in everyday life. It is a combination of all these things that make these wins at Cannes truly satisfying,? he said.

Nike?s campaign ?Make every yard count? was another stand out piece of creative thinking and it put the light on the aam aadmi. The campaign captured moments of triumph and loss among the common people as they played their favourite game of cricket in nukkads, gullys, mohallas and grounds across the length and breadth of the country. ?This campaign doesn?t fall into the trap of using celebrities as props. Instead, it brings out the cricket aspirations of the people. It has a domino effect and starts from bottom up,? says Santosh Padhi, chief creative officer and co-founder of Taproot.

The film held together 225,000 crowd sourced moments from over a thousand cricket fields of India, and featured vignettes from 1,440 young cricketers.

Similarly the ?Cleft to smile? awareness campaign for Operation Smile India, from Ogilvy & Mather won a gold Lion in the design category. Ogilvy created a typable logo, which became the most tweeted on the micro-blogging site. It generated 20,000-plus tweets and 100-plus celebrity tweets. There were no big budgets allotted for this. ?The underlying theme for Cannes Lions this year was storytelling,? says Rohit Ohri, executive chairman, Denstu India and chief executive of Dentsu Asia Pacific (South). The message that comes out loud and clear from Cannes this year, he says, is that technology can never substitute ideas. ?As a country, we live by stories. Our social consciousness is shaped by epic stories, myths and fables. We just need to never lose sight of that,? he says.

Despite the appreciation following the stupendous and original work produced by Indian agencies, the country?s performance in terms of number of awards won fell behind the previous year?s. This year India won only 27 metals against 33 metals won the previous year.

JWT India garnered 35 points, the highest among Indian agencies. Ogilvy India was one point behind with 34, while McCann Worldgroup India finished third with 32 points. Nike?s ?Make every yard count? by JWT India picked up seven metals which included silver and bronze, across film, film craft, branded entertainment and cyber categories. ?JWT has always chased market leadership for the clients and brands we steward. If awards are an outcome of that, we are happy with it,? said Colvyn Harris, chief executive at JWT, South Asia. He said that the combination of brilliant strategy and sparkling creativity has worked for their brands and ensured JWT?s professional standards. ?With four silvers and four bronze, JWT has once again proved that the excellent performance is a testimony to the powerful ideas and brilliant work we put forth for our clients, their brands and their business, which has received the recognition it deserves,? Harris added. This time around, India scored only five gold Lions while in the previous year, the ad fraternity had brought home eight gold Lions. India drew a naught in the Grand Prix awards.

The industry, however, is more than happy with the performance. ?From the scale and scope of work I had witnessed at the domestic ad awards, I had figured that we will net around 22 metals. What we scored at Cannes was much beyond my initial expectation. And every year cannot be a Grand Prix year,? says Santosh Padhi from Taproot.

Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman and chief executive of India and president-South Asia, McCann Worldgroup said that one shouldn?t view advertising awards like Olympic medals. ?This is quite unlike the highly competitive sports business where the ultimate job of a sportsman is to bag a multitude of medals,? he said. Many ad professionals remark that India?s performance at the ad awards would have been a lot better, if the economy was in a better shape and if advertisers were not crimping budgets. Joshi said: ?As the president of the Cannes Titanium jury, I can only say one thing about India?s performance. We have huge potential and a long way to go.?