India is certainly on a winning spree at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2021. On day 4, it brought home 4 more metals: 1 Silver and 3 Bronze across three categories out of six announced on Thursday. 

Dentsu Webchutney again picked up 2 more Bronze metals (Mobile and Creative Ecommerce category); FCB Interface followed, picking up another Bronze in Mobile. Cheil India came next, grabbing its first and only metal for the year -- a Silver Lion in Brand Experience & Activation category. 

Quick look at the winning campaigns of the day: 

Now, Words Aren’t Just Heard by Cheil India 

The campaign, which won one of the four shortlists in the category, won a Silver Lion for innovative use of technology. 

The campaign was designed for Samsung Good Vibes smartphone communication, which has two interfaces: one regular, and the other for the deafblind. It translates voice and text messages into Morse Code vibrations, and vice versa, helping the deafblind community. Supported by a robust digital campaign and nationwide training workshops, the campaign is bringing inclusivity to over 500,000 people who have been disregarded by modern social media technologies.

Elated about the win, Cheil India CCO Emmanuel Upputuru said, “Samsung Good Vibes- Now words are not just heard but felt is an innovative initiative to raise awareness of a problem that is often not seen or heard. It is a campaign that is now bringing inclusivity to over 500,000 people.

"It is extremely humbling to be considered, much less to win the prestigious Cannes Silver Lion in Mobile/ Innovative Use of Technology category. We are grateful to be recognised for this innovative, adaptive and evolving two-way communication experience for the deafblind. The win reinstates our belief in the company's ethos of creativity inspired by technology. We hope to continue bringing such innovative work that will help society as a whole. Keeping our fingers crossed for other categories.”

The Better Half Recipes & The 8-bit Journo by Dentsu Webchutney

Dentsu Webchutney won two bronze Lions, rounding up its overall metal tally at seven for the year.

‘The 8-bit Journo’ for Vice, which had already won three Silver and One Bronze Lion, added two more Bronze metals in Mobile (mobile-led creativity) and Brand Experience & Activation (single-market campaign) categories. The campaign was an interesting initiative to inform the Jammu & Kashmir public of what transpired in the world when they were under a 100+ day internet and telecom blackout after the scrapping of Article 370 in August 2019.

The Better Half Recipes’ for Swiggy Instamart won a Bronze Lion in the Creative eCommerce (cultural insight) category. The campaign was the only shortlist in the category from India.

The brand launched an innovative cookbook with the idea to bring more equality into the kitchen by splitting the recipes into two halves to give partners an equal responsibility to cook the meal. Each partner had to follow only their side of the instructions to see their meal come together, together. The ingredients from the cookbook could be ordered directly with a simple QR scan and the order was delivered by Swiggy Instamart, with a promise of on-door delivery within 30-45 minutes.

To get their hands on the cookbook, users were asked to send pictures of them and their better halves. A barrage of entries poured in to claim a copy of #TheBetterHalfCookBook, making the campaign an immense success. The brand then went on to launch “Better Half Earpodcast” to listen to the recipes.

On the amazing winning spree over the past three days, Dentsu Webchutney CEO Gautam Raghunath said, “It’s right about now, the middle of Cannes Lions week, where it usually gets exciting for us at Webchutney. The kind of work that has won in digital craft, creative e-commerce, mobile, social & influencer is true to the style of creativity that we want to champion and we’re so happy to be in such an excellent company this year. And also the company of all the other wonderful Indian work that’s won from FCB, DDB, Ogilvy and others.”

The Punishing Signal by FCB Interface

Another star campaign from India this year, ‘The Punishing Signal’ by FCB Interface, won the agency’s seventh Lion at Cannes 2021. It picked a Bronze in the Brand Experience & Activation (not-for-profit/charity/government) category. Interestingly, the campaign has won a Lion in each category it was nominated for but Direct, wherein it had two shortlists.

The campaign for Mumbai Police was launched in January 2020, wherein special decibel meters connected to traffic signals were put across the island city with the unenviable sobriquet of the "Honking Capital of the World".              

Speaking on the win, Robby Mathew, Vice Chairman & CCO, FCB Interface, said, “Absolutely delighted. I really wish we had entered it in more categories.” 

The results for the categories of Creative Business Transformation, Innovation, and Radio & Audio were also announced during the day, but India had no shortlists in them. 

Other campaigns that were shortlisted in the winning categories included VMLY&R’s ‘Pedasuransi’ for Heinz ABC; Lowe Lintas’ ‘Careers from Home’ for Wheel; Wunderman Thompson’s ‘Make Your Own Mask’ for TOI; and Famous Innovations’ ‘The AppleGram’  for Radio Zindagi. 

With just one day left for the festival to culminate, and eight more shortlists in two categories pending results tomorrow, here’s how India’s metal tally looked at the end of day 04 at Cannes Lions 2021: