Cannes 2012: Gandhi scores again for Leo Burnett, this time in Radio

The sole Lion for India in the Radio category has come in for a Strand Book Stall campaign in which a child is heard conversing with Gandhiji. The campaign was created by Leo Burnett and produced by Lingo India.

The international jury at Cannes seems to be quite impressed with this campaign.

The jury president, Rob McLenan, executive creative director, Network BBDO, says, "This one tries to change the behaviour and push reading as a habit, which is fantastic."

Rahul Jauhari, national creative director, Everest Advertising, who was on the jury, says, "This radio spot had a universal appeal because the reading habit among children is on a decline across the world, which is why the other jury members also associate with the problem."

McLenan adds, "To find new ways of using a traditional medium is a difficult task, which is why in radio, we were looking for ideas that pushed the boundaries."

The Grand Prix was won by an entry created for Go Outside, a magazine for people who practice outdoor sports and adventure trips. The magazine tied up with a radio station and for three weeks between 6-8 pm, transmitted an audio signal of 15 KHz which is barely heard by human beings. The signal imitated the sound of a dragon fly, which is a natural predator of mosquitoes.

Created by Talent Sao Paulo, this was an idea that used radio in a new way.

There was another interesting campaign on radio by Mercedes Benz, which came close but it had used the medium in a traditional way, which is why it lost the race for the Grand Prix, though the idea was great.

The silver Lion in this category was won by JWT London for its work for Ireland Tourism. The campaign involved booking the same time slot in different frequencies. Each frequency took the listeners through a tourist spot on radio and different frequencies covered different destinations - an innovative use of media planning and execution on radio. The campaign won a silver Lion in the Radio category.

Jauhari shares that there has been a great learning from radio works seen here. He says, "In a country like South Africa, radio is the main medium, but in India we believe that radio can be cracked in 2-3 days without any proper planning."

In India, only TV enjoys that kind of privilege. The amount of money and effort that goes into creating a radio commercial is also very low. He says, "Seeing the kind of global work at Cannes opens up your mind on what all can be done with radio."