Cannes Contenders 2021: VMLY&R

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

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After a year's gap, the organiser 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.

We are presenting here entries from Indian/South Asian agencies that their creators believe should win big at the 2021 International Festival of Creativity.

VMLY&R India has two such entries.

Parachute Advansed

#ChampiBeats

Parachute Advanced, one of India's oldest hair oil brands, was having trouble connecting with Gen Z, who saw the brand as their mom’s brand. More troublingly, they thought of hair oil as an unpleasant inconvenience, that wasn’t part of their lifestyle. While they were stuck at home during the lockdown, Parachute Advanced wanted to reach out and connect with them. The brief was to explore trendy new social platforms, and media formats to engage with Gen Z, and change their perception of the brand, and increase brand consideration.

To calm India's stressed youth in 2020, VMLY&R dug up an ancient oil head massage ritual (called the Champi) dating back to 600 BC and turned it into a new age musical stress hack on TikTok.

Because Champi is traditionally done with a vigorous rhythm, the agency created a catchy new track based on Champi rhythms and trending TikTok tracks. Then got traditional massage experts to design a 3-step ‘Champi’ routine to our track that changed tempo every 5 seconds. When TikTok influencers dared their fans to try it, TikTok took it on. The response was staggering.

Kraft Heinz - Sambal ABC

Pedasuransi

Indonesia is a spice crazy country. And ‘sambal’, the country’s traditional chilli sauce, is a staple on every dining table. Literally, every meal is drenched with generous dollops of sambal, the spicier the better.

Sambal ABC, Indonesia’s leading chilli sauce for a long time, was losing customers to newer sauces in the market, all of whom were claiming to be spicier. Even though blind tests showed Sambal ABC as the spiciest. Indonesians needed to be well-versed as to how hot Sambal ABC really was. And making yet another ‘spicy’ claim with a traditional campaign, wouldn’t convince them who were used to hearing such claims all the time. VMLY&R had to impress them in a clutter-breaking yet believable way that our spiciness was way superior when compared with the competition.

Hence, VMLY&R created the World’s Spiciest Noodles with Sambal ABC, and to protect the people from its spiciness, the agency launched ABC Pedasuransi, the world’s first spice insurance policy. Created in collaboration with AXA, the world’s third largest insurance giant, the policy gave victims hospital cover (worth IDR150000) for a week from the after-effects of eating Sambal ABC World’s Spiciest Noodles. VMLY&R’ campaign launched this disruptive spice insurance policy at Indonesia’s largest food festival, UFF, by challenging spice-crazy Indonesians to handle the heat. And changed their perceptions about the brand’s spiciness forever.