19 APAC entries win Media Lions; PHD sets a benchmark for India

The Media Lions category saw its set of winners at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. From Asia Pacific, where over 60 pieces of work had made it to the shortlist, 19 walk away with a Lion.

There are three Gold Media Lions – two of which are taken by PHD India’s work ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’, done for Hindustan Unilever.

For India, the win marks a new benchmark as it is a digital, and not traditional, entry winning in a Media category. Speaking to DMA, Jasmin Sohrabji, CEO, Omnicom Media Group Southeast Asia said, “Performance in the marketplace is our priority, and winning an award for our work and being acknowledged by our clients and our fraternity gives the team a lot more motivation to aim higher. Winning at Cannes Lions, no less, is a matter of pride for all of us. We are delighted with the performance of PHD India at the Festival this year. As I mentioned earlier, what’s important is these wins are coming for a medium that is crucial for growth markets; a medium the industry is still experimenting with.”

“What makes KKT really interesting is the idea originates in India but its simplicity lends it the potential to be scaled to various other markets, especially growth markets that are priority for Unilever,” added Ms Sohrabji.

Lowe Lintas is the creative agency on the entry. Kan Khajura Tesan is the first fully advertiser funded mobile based entertainment-on-demand initiative in India. The driving force behind this campaign is the fact that a large percentage of the consumer group for HUL brands are in media dark villages and cannot be reached via traditional media like TV, radio & print. In these rural areas access to TV and radio is limited and further constrained by poor availability of electricity.

“Areas that were otherwise termed to be ‘media dark’ are now “entertainment-enlightened” with ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’ reaching out to more than 11 million subscribers. In total till date we have had 180 million minutes of engagement with our consumers. Our ads have been heard 100 million times in the last 7 months alone’. We have as HUL created many marketing firsts and we are extremely proud to have worked with a fantastic team with agency partners PHD India and Lowe India to create another ‘first’ in digital marketing in India. It’s wonderful for the work to get acclaim and recognition at a large global platform like Cannes,” commented Priya Nair, Vice President at HUL.

FCB New Zealand has won the third Gold for Brother in Arms

The Grand Prix was awarded to McCann Lima in Peru for Coca-Cola

The winners tally from APAC are

Via Digital Market Asia