It was fortuitous that I decided to go to the Cannes International Festival of Creativity [Cannes Lions 2022] after some of the campaigns we worked on were sent for award entries in multiple categories. While, a win seemed like a steep ask, the experience of immersing in the creative frenzy of the festival was as much a prize I had thought. To my delight multiple Indian campaigns were being awarded and ‘suno gaur se duniya waalon, buri nazar na hum pe daalo, sabse aage honge Hindusani..” was played so many times that you could mistakenly take it to be the festival theme song.
This year, India won big at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity [Cannes Lions 2022]. Some of the most creative minds had created unapparelled work, which was duly acknowledged and awarded. Interestingly, apart from just creative, even PR work from India is making its presence felt at global forums now and this makes me very excited about the industry’s next phase of storytelling.
Two Cannes Lions’ for us in the PR category came from a UNAIDS and SOS Children’s Villages India campaign. The collective haul between these two campaigns includes a total of 9 Lions’ – 2 Golds, 2 Silvers and 5 Bronzes for all agencies involved (creative, digital and PR). The excitement is still to die down and the pride, I believe, will stay in our hearts forever.
While we are winding down here in Cannes and still in the company of some of the best creative people of our times, I have had time to look back and call out what exactly helped the PR work get here.
Effective PR demands creativity. Period.
When a client comes with a challenge or a problem, it is always unique. Therefore, almost impossible to have a cookie-cutter model for all communication challenges. Here is when creativity kicks in. The creative team finds the story, the angles, the nuances and all the others find a way to leverage the characters who play a part and give them voices to create the surround sound, across platforms. That was the job we had.
UNAIDS (#Unboxme) needed to advocate for the rights of transgender children. The idea was to empower them to stop hiding their identities in the closet i.e. a box. Agency teams collectively wanted to highlight the diversity among children and bring attention to the need to respect transgender children.
While the powerful and moving film is available for everyone to see online, #Unboxme campaign revolved around asking transgender people about their childhood and recreated memory boxes that contained elements of their self-identity and expression as they were growing up. These boxes became a powerful reminder of the struggles children go through and the need for their social inclusion by parents, family, teachers, health care providers and community at large. These boxes of trinkets, symbolic items (nail paint, lipstick etc.) were sent to influencers to seek their support for the campaign, and the encouragement was massive.
For a non-profit (SOS Children’s Village, India) looking for donations, the teams visualised a ten year-old ‘influencer’, who did ‘free’ publicity for famous brands to encourage them to donate. This influencer meant business – he made more sense of life in his quirky style than any adult. #Chatpatkagyaan. A powerful communication strategy and outreach to key media and influencers resulted in Chatpat ka gyaan going viral. Chatpat became an overnight sensation. PR team drew in a series of critical media and social influencers through a process of petitioning that mimicked the central character of this campaign to great effect and success.
Your partners make all the difference, and it takes time and collaboration to support the story. Both these campaigns had great creative minds and even greater collaborators across agencies and specialisations. We began creating the story long before one would imagine – and this is key – when PR is integrated into the creative process, it shapes and makes the eventual communication that much edgy, effective and exponential.
Some key learnings:
- PR is more successful when integrated at ideation stage.
Gone are the days when PR, Social, Digital and Creative worked in their silos and came in when it was deemed necessary. Technology and access to information have made our work seamless and highly interdependent – and difficult too. Today we risk confusing the audience if our narrative is not the same at all times, across platforms. Each discipline of the communications plan plays a simultaneous role, but it might be visible to the audience sometimes at one go and sometimes one after the other. Our challenge was to stay true to concept, deliver exact messages and amplify the scope without overstepping the line between solicitation and shaping opinion – or in this case seeking action and shaping opinion.
- Measurement is a statement
As professionals, we are here to do a job that requires results, without which all efforts, creativity and hard work means nothing. It helps to set the objectives right at the outset to create goal posts and the finishing line too. Measurability is critical even in our business, as difficult as it might sound, it is possible and immensely liberating. When you know the target, you will more often than not, achieve it. Afterall, as communicators if we fail to observe real impact then clearly, we failed to communicate at all. Fortunately, both campaigns had deliverables sewn in to them – for #ChatpatkaGyan the goal was to raise funding; and #UnboxMe needed champions to support the campaign.
- Let the campaign talk
When you sit down to create the award entry, the entire process flashes in front of you, and that is where you know if there were any loopholes, at all. There will always be something undone, and the usual would have, should have, could have; but if you have achieved what you set out to do, believe it. Only when you believe, is when the jury will, because you won’t be in front of them. The jury will see, hear and read your entry and see the impact, so let your entry talk – creatively, clearly, confidently and with passion.
Cumulus PR won 2 Cannes Lions this year and multiple shared awards with FCB India, FCB Chicago and Kinnect.
UNAIDS #UNBOXME
Some influencer posts:
SOS Children’s Village, India #Chatpatkagyaan
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Sumita has led Cumulus PR to having the largest client base in the education sector across India and India-centric global educational institutions. Today, under her leadership, Cumulus PR has grown to offer the full gamut of strategy, media relations and communication planning to a host of multi sector businesses.
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