With 25 metals, the Indian contingent’s performance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year was unimpressive when compared with last year’s haul of 47 medals. Akanksha Nagar asked creative leaders to suggest what it will take for India to win big on a global platform. Some answers.
‘Start by honing the craft of video submissions’
Gautam Reghunath, Co-founder & CEO, Talented
I don’t think India’s fallen short at all this year at Cannes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s been one of the better years because of the kind of work that’s won. Campaigns that we’ve seen travel on social media for weeks on end, and not just right before award season, they were fronted to real customers, there was real participation and it’s absolutely the kind of work that should be representing India on a global stage. What we did well, especially in the kind of categories that won was — there’s an obvious difference this year from the standard categories that India is used to winning, typically being print and film. This year, India’s work was shortlisted and won in some of the newer categories like creative data and social, and that’s just a natural reflection of where our audiences lie.
But should our agencies consider improving their presentation? 100%. I always come back after awards season thinking we must do a lot better in terms of the craft of our video submissions. International big-network agencies with a legacy of winning have always been excellent at this. I think the biggest mistake we’ve made over the years is trying to pack in too much in the two minutes that every campaign is allocated.
In terms of cultural understanding, I think we’ve got the added responsibility of context setting. Especially with video cases, Indian brands tend to spend more time explaining who our brand is and the category it resides in, a lot more than our Western counterparts do. But then again, it’s not an Indian problem specifically. Other countries aren’t exempt from this issue either. But it’s obvious that global brands, typically based out of North American and European markets do not have this baggage. From a jury perspective, it’s natural that you feel more (whether good or bad) about brands that you’re already aware of. That prior knowledge gives the work you’re evaluating added context, and it’s likely that you rationalise the execution of the campaign you’re evaluating a lot more easily. But then again, baggage itself is not inherently good or bad.
‘Our work doesn’t always manage to tick all the right boxes’
Rahul Mathew, chief creative officer, DDB Mudra Group
This year surely wasn’t our best performance, but it does feel worse because of the unusually incredible year that we had in 2022. If you take last year out, we’ve been steadily growing in our metal count year-on-year. That said, 2022 was a bit muted when it came to work that pushed the boundaries of creativity. Cannes awards unexpected creativity, executed with great craft, at scale, and packaged incredibly. Our work doesn’t always manage to tick all four, and that is why we at times fall short of the big shiny, stuff. There’s one thing though that we haven’t yet cracked at Cannes — a lot of work that wins are already adjudged winners before they reach Cannes. We’ve all seen them and admired them on various forums. This subliminally nudges the jury to keep pushing the pieces forward to higher metals. A lot of our work has to make its own limelight at the festival itself. That said, I feel our presentations have improved tremendously. But, there is always room for improvement.
Most of our big wins over the last few years actually have had a strong cultural context – Immunity Charm, Sindhur Khela, or Project Free Period. So, I think our cultural context is actually our strength and a lot of our recent wins have been on global brands. To sum it up, today Indian agencies have as much of a chance to win, we got a taste of it, we just need to make our collective creative brilliance shine through more.
‘We need to create quality work at scale… consistently’
Mukund Olety, chief creative officer, VMLY&R Network
A Cannes Lion is a by-product of transformative creative thinking and solutions. So, it does serve as a good indicator of the quality of work we are producing as a country. There are a few stand-out pieces but are we creating great work at scale? The key here is consistency. How to be the ‘Agency of the Year’ at Cannes? By doing the best work of the day for more days than anyone else— it’s true for an agency and it’s true for the country. We need to constantly push boundaries, innovate, be effective, make an impact, and create a culture of thinking new-age solutions. The wins at Cannes show that we are headed in the right direction. Over the last two years, we are winning in new-age categories — Innovation, Titanium, Business Transformation, Health, and Entertainment; we just need to do more of it as a country.
But that’s not to say you shouldn’t be creating any other kind of work. I don’t think we should be limited by the category or the medium. There are many Indias within India. If your work is impacting even that one person or community in the remotest parts of the country, it needs to be celebrated. You just need to work harder in explaining that context or the story to the jury. The quality of our case studies has definitely gone up a notch. That said, if the idea is great and has made an impact, I have seen jury members go all out to understand and appreciate the cultural context. Although, the jury does get swayed by good work on iconic global brands. We need to continue to create stand-out pieces on big global brands — Coke, Colgate, Mondelez, and Dell. That said, many homegrown brands are winning big at Cannes as well — Maxx Flash and Swiggy. Irrespective of the size of the brand, there is an opportunity to create iconic work. You just need to make your ideas bigger — so big, that no one can ignore it.