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The recently-concluded Cannes Lions has left visitors with a number of anecdotes. One such doing the rounds is on how the after-parties changed colour as the festival progressed from 16th to 22th June. The after-parties at the French Riviera, it is being said, got bigger and brighter. After all, the Indian contingent was joining in more often with each passing day of the Cannes week.
India was one of the key participant countries, apart from US, UK, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Thailand. This year there were 33 lions that the Indian contingent took home - its highest so far at the festival. And, the tally was even more gratifying after last year's dismal show. In 2012, there were just 14 lions that came home.
If you choose to keep out Bacardi's win in 'Branded Content & Entertainment', an award for advertisers and not communication agencies, then Indian agencies had only 13 metals to their credit last year.
How did the Indian brigade cover ground from 13 to 33 in a year's time? "Without question, it was press, design and outdoor," says Santosh Padhi, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot, India, who was also a juror at Cannes this year. His agency was one of the big names, apart from Grey, Ogilvy and McCann, which led from the front in bagging awards. The four agencies bagged a total of eight golds - the highest haul at Cannes so far - mostly in the categories Padhi mentions.
"The global advertising fraternity," Padhi says, "has always recognised and appreciated our ability to come up with good ideas in these segments. We were lacking when it came to the aspect of the craft. This year, we showed that we had improved on that front as well. For me, it has been immensely gratifying to see that we've finally cracked it as far as the execution of an idea in print, outdoor or design is concerned. When your ad is crafted well, it automatically enhances the idea."
However, 85 per cent of India's metals came from press, design and outdoor this year. The balance 15 per cent came from direct marketing, public relations and film craft, implying that only six out of the total sixteen categories gave India its metals haul.
The categories missed are big-ticket ones such as film, radio, promo and activation, media, digital and mobile. "We have never been big winners in film, barring a year or two here and there. There is a reason for that," says Abhijit Avasthi, national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, India, which has been at the forefront of TV advertising in India for two decades now. "Our work tends to be culturally nuanced, which quite often, does not make sense to a global audience or jury. And, in festivals such as Cannes, where there is so much work that you are seeing as a juror, if an ad fails to have an impact in the first few minutes, it loses out as a result. The same goes for radio, which again, is very local in flavour. Quite often, it simply doesn't make sense to a global jury," Avasthi adds.
In the last few years, India has had a few bronze and silver lions in radio, including one in 2008, for Cycle Agarbattis by Mudra Communications. The agency conveyed the brand message in a simple way: It played a popular bhajan right after the sound from a cycle's bell. Listeners, therefore, could easily identify that the jingle was for the Cycle brand of agarbattis. Mudra bagged a bronze for this radio spot.
In film, India's last significant win was in 2009, when it bagged a gold - its only one in films -for Times of India's 'A Day in the Life of Chennai'. It marked the newspaper's launch in the city, by delving into the life of a cut-out character, starting out as an action-hero to being used as a politician, and finally being discarded by the wayside.
While radio and film have had cultural nuances as genuine handicaps, mobile and digital have no such alibis. The absence of lions in these categories, then, betray an ominous shortcoming.
Agency heads admit that India is woefully behind the curve when it comes to new media and digital. "We do not take these categories seriously," says Amit Akali, national creative director & executive vice-president, Grey. "The world has moved in that direction, but we haven't. We have to make that leap," he says.
At 3 to 4 per cent of the total advertising pie, which stands at Rs 30,000 crore, agency and creative heads argue that advertisers simply do not apportion enough spends on the digital medium. "These are segments that have developed of late," says Avasthi. "You have to give agencies some time before they get their act together there. Also, we still tend to be TV-led, unlike the West where they are digital-led. I think we will eventually get there," he adds. 'Eventually' better be soon, for it is not just wins at Cannes that are at stake, but also the ability to ride into the future.
