After a year's gap, the organisers of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2021 will be celebrating work from the industry through its virtual red carpet awards nights between 21-25 June.
Campaign India will be showcasing all of India's entries to the festival through our 'Cannes Contenders' series.
They say Cannes jurors don’t get enough time to scrutinise and deliberate on a piece of work they haven’t really come across before. This series is a way of acquainting them with the good work from India and South Asia before their judging stint. And of course, to acquaint the rest of the industry with which work from this region is competing at Cannes Lions this year.
MullenLowe Lintas Group has six such entries. Five of them are for Lowe Lintas while one is for Mullen Lintas.
Lowe Lintas
Wheel
Ghar se career
The problem with every cliché is that slowly it turns into a stereotype! Since time immemorial, the laundry category has represented the woman as the quintessential ‘washer woman’. In the last four decades, Wheel, India’s mass detergent brand has proven itself to be the undisputed washing champion. It took up the challenge to wipe off the tougher dirt - the ‘WasherWoman’ stereotype and empower them to earn their place in the real world. While the category was further stereotyping the woman by giving freebies like tumblers and buckets, Wheel realized that despite multiple challenges, the average Indian woman wishes for so much more. She craves for her IDENTITY. And making the woman financially independent was the starting point of this journey! Wheel ‘Career From Home’ is a one of a kind training platform for upskilling. A platform of skilling herself and earning money from the confines of her home, using the powerful gadget that had recently become her best friend – THE MOBILE PHONE. With every pack of Wheel, we gave her a 1 GB data free by partnering with Jio (India’s largest mobile network) and access to training on 4 topics that could teach her skills of relevance and interest. It wasn’t just a data plan. But a gateway to knowledge that opened the doors to the world for her!
Sunlight
Open Hearts Open Homes
Sri Lanka is known for its pristine natural beauty, ethnic and religious diversity, and warm, friendly people. Ravaged by a 20-year civil war, the country had just started rebuilding itself culturally and economically when it was hit by a new tragedy. As the 2019 Easter bombings were carried out by local radical Islamists, the ethnic and religious divisions were back to the fore again, sowing the seeds of distrust and retaliation. The Muslim community was being demonised and the social fabric of the nation was under threat of being torn apart once again. As Sri Lanka’s most loved and respected brand that was a part of every family, Sunlight attempted to turn around the prevailing climate of distrust and animosity in society. Sunlight did exactly what one would expect of a family member. It stood resolutely by the side of its family. It didn’t just sympathise and wipe away the tears of its fellow countrymen but helped them overcome the tragedy in a way that strengthened their bonds - by asking them to open their hearts once more.
Lifebuoy
H for Handwash
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of handwashing with soap was thrust into the global spotlight. Yet, several studies showed that though handwashing rates picked up initially, they also started to decline in the middle of the pandemic. Not surprising as this has been an ongoing struggle for over 100 years across various pandemics. To future-proof the world against pandemics by encouraging the world to adopt the correct handwashing habits, Lifebuoy developed one of the simplest, most scalable and most effortless to execute ideas: ‘H for Handwashing’. It focuses on how, for generations, children have been taught letters of the alphabet through simple associations with everyday references such as ‘A’ for Apple, ‘B’ for Ball and ‘C’ for Cat. It aims to fundamentally change how the letter ‘H’ is taught. No longer will ‘H’ stand for Horse, Hat or even Home. ‘H’ must stand for Handwashing. A simple intervention that introduces the concept of handwashing to children at the right age, making it a widespread habit that is learnt early but lasts a lifetime.
Kaam Wapasi
A grim outcome of the lockdown in India, arguably the world’s harshest, was that more than 30million daily wage blue and brown collar skilled and unskilled migrant workers were rendered jobless. Employment in this unorganized sector in India typically happens through a unique system of Labour Chowks - high traffic crossroads in metros where skilled and unskilled workers gather daily with their tools to find day’s work and wage. The solution to the problem is a virtual replica of the physical ‘Labour Chowk’ – the de-facto system for daily wage earners and employers to get/provide employment. Kaam Wapasi (Back To Work) helps migrant workers find a suitable job, at a location of their choice, from the comfort of their homes. Kaam Wapasi, through its unique mobile web application and IVRS, allows migrant labour to upload their skill levels and location preference data, and employers to upload their skill and location requirements. The robust algorithms then take over in matching the data sets of employers and potential employees, helping migrant workers return to work with control over the kind of jobs they get and the places they get them at.
Axis Bank
Reverse the khata
Normally, small shops would extend credit to their customers under a ‘khaata’. What if customers returned the favor, this time? ‘Reverse the Khaata’ is a simple act of extending credit to the shop you always buy from. Keep the ‘khaata’ running but this time from your end. The film was conceived from this simple, endearing concept that portrayed all the street vendors and shopkeepers that we all see in our neighbourhood every day. It narrated their plight and underscored how they never thought twice before extending credit to the customer. Almost as a heartfelt letter, the film urges people to do their bit for the shop-owners in their time of need.
Mullen Lintas
Phool Versha Foundation & NamMyoho Daan
Count them in
As COVID-19 broke out, India witnessed a nationwide lockdown at a 4-hour notice, that threw oppressed sections of society into further crisis. Medical practitioners were stretched beyond breaking point as the death toll mounted. There was a mass movement of urban migrant labour which was being talked about, there were the senior citizens who needed support and eco-systems were being created to support them. However, amidst this unprecedented crisis, we forgot one community, those we couldn’t see. Those we hadn’t ever acknowledged as a culture, who were until the millennium not even counted in the country. The Transgender community. Phool Versha foundation in collaboration with NamMyoho Daan and Kinner, an NGO that is dedicated to support the transgender community, decided to help the Transgender community when no one else would.
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