Cannes Contenders 2018: WATConsult

Believe your entry deserves a Lion? Send us the work and the case

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With the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2018 just about a month away, Campaign India returns with its 'Cannes Contender' series.

The premise is:

How much time really does a Cannes juror get to understand a case or piece of work s/he hasn't come across before?

Too little. It's up to us to help them get acquainted with the good work prior. We present here entries from Indian/South Asian agencies that their creators believe will be in contention for Lions at the 2018 International Festival of Creativity.

WATConsult has one such entry.

#PowerlessQueen

Chess originated in India in the sixth century and as we know ‘Queen’ plays a vital role in the game of chess, but till date, unfortunately in the Indian society the ‘Queens’ are the least powerful. They are not allowed their basic right to education which leads to them being powerless.

Keeping the same in mind and with an aim to throw light on how a society would fail or fails if the ‘Queen’ is powerless, WATConsult, the digital and social media agency from Dentsu Aegis Network India and Nanhi Kali, an NGO that aims to provide primary education to underprivileged girl children in India joined hands to launched ‘Powerless Queen’, an online chess game.

Being a one of its kind game, in this version of Chess one player had to play with a Powerless Queen, i.e. a queen who couldn’t move while the other player would have a powerful queen. Queen being the most powerful piece on the chessboard, #PowerlessQueen was a metaphor for how real-life queens i.e. women in India are treated and rendered powerless.

The campaign was launched by India’s number two ranked chess player, Tania Sachdev on social media via a video where she challenged people to take up the #PowerlessQueen challenge and try to win the game.

The core objective was to create an awareness about the plight of women in our country today and generate donations for the education of underprivileged girls by Nanhi Kali.

School students from across schools participated in a Powerless Queen Challenge organised by The Chess School of India and The Coach Crew.

A chess club in France hosted a #PowerlessQueen challenge. Powerless Queen will soon be rolled out as gender-equality teaching tool across schools in India.