<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Cannes 2006:</B></FONT> Rediffusion, O&M strike gold in the Outdoor category

Two days into the festival and it’s already raining metals for India. At the 53rd Cannes Advertising Festival 2006, the Outdoor category saw four metals move India’s way. Rediffusion DY&R and O&M have scored a gold each in the Outdoor category. O&M secured its gold for ‘World Map’, its work for Discovery Channel in the Outdoor: Publications and Media category. Rediffusion won its gold for ‘Lord of the Rings’, a booklet it created for Delhi based client Midland Bookshop, in the Ambient: Bar and Restaurants category.

Leo Burnett bagged a bronze for ‘Bhopal Gas’, its entry for client Dinodia Photo Library, in the Outdoor: Business Equipment and Services category. Everest Brand Solutions, too, bagged a bronze for its anti-smoking message for the Cancer Patients Aid Association, called ‘Cemetery’, in the Ambient: Special Build category.

Rediffusion’s work for Midland Bookshop bagged a bronze at the One Show this year as well as a D&AD silver nomination. An elated KS ‘Chax’ Chakravarthy, Rediff’s national creative director, exclaims, “When I was asked which were the strong Indian contenders at Cannes this year, I had replied that I was confident about our work for Midland Bookshop and Leo Burnett’s work for Maneland Jungle Lodge. Those predictions are already being proved right.”

The campaign for Midland Bookshop was based on a simple brief: to get book lovers to take time out and step into the shop and reiterate the thought that despite the advent of other entertaining media, reading books is still fun and insightful. The campaign consisted of three books, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Communist Manifesto’ and ‘20,000 Leagues under the Sea’, planted at various urban locations such as restaurants and coffee shops.

The three books contained stories of people who benefited after chancing upon inspiring books and how the books changed the course of their lives. For instance, one of the mini books contained the story of Peter Jackson, who, after reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’, was inspired to make a movie that went on to become one of the biggest hits in Hollywood history. In fact, these books were even distributed at the bookstore.

Meanwhile, O&M too, is quite pleased with its gold lion. The last gold it had bagged at Cannes before this one was in 2003 (in this year, it bagged two golds, two silvers and one bronze). In 2004, O&M scored two bronze lions, whereas 2005 saw one silver for O&M in the outdoor category.

Commenting on India’s performance at Cannes so far, Piyush Pandey, chairman and national creative director, O&M, says, “So far, so good! The youngsters today are outdoing what the admen of yesteryears used to do. I’m quite optimistic that India will get quite a bagful of metals at Cannes this year.”

In fact, with nine metals already in India’s kitty, he says, this may just be the beginning of India’s best performance at Cannes so far.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!