Cannes Lions 2024: Havas India’s entries spotlight Indian festivities

As the advertising industry prepares itself for its annual celebration of talent - The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, agencies across the world are hankering to send in their entries to the competition. Slated to be held between June 17 and June 21 this year, the event has several Indian agencies sending in their successful campaigns to compete under various categories.  

The Indian arm of global agency Havas Media has two endearing ads that have Indian festivals as central themes as their official entries. One is the Mamaearth Nava Shringar for Nava Durga campaign and the other is Mortien’s Raksha Jyoti campaign (centred around Diwali). Let's take a deep dive into these ads.  

“India is a colourful country. We pride ourselves on our culture, our traditions and the values we are raised with. Here, no festival is a small festival,” said Anupama Ramaswamy, Chief Creative Officer and Joint Managing Director, Havas Worldwide India.  

Nava Sringar for Nava Durga 

The agency has entered this campaign in three categories, namely single market campaign - brand experience and activation, design-deiven effectiveness and use of events & stunts. 

The campaign itself is spun around the festival of Nav Durga or Durga Puja which celebrates the essence of womanhood. It challenges artists to use Shringar (cosmetic products) as the means to portray their interpretation of the nine avatars of Goddess Durga and their corresponding virtues. It shows the artistes at work, using various Mamaearth products to come up with beautiful and powerful images of all nine avatars of the Goddess. It also emphasizes how each embodies all of these virtues, and becomes a celebration of womanhood itself.  

“During the Pujo season, the vibrant spirit of Ma Durga showcases the artistic creations of numerous talents. It's a time when women of all generations grace the pandals in their finest attire, radiating confidence and charisma. Naturally, when we envisioned a campaign around Durga Puja for Mamaearth, their Makeup Range seemed like the perfect match,” said Ramaswamy. 

She added the agency needed something disruptive and that's how they thought of bringing four artists on board for the campaign, challenging them with the unique twist of using only Mamaearth make-up - lipsticks, kajals and foundations. The campaign draws parallels between how the artists use Paints as Shringar to bring out the 9 avatars of Ma Durga and how women use Makeup as Shringar to bring out their own avatars. “In doing so, we celebrate what the goddess truly represents — the Ymultifacetedness of being a woman,” adds Ramaswamy. 

The impact 

The ad generated quite a buzz on social media with an engagement of over 4,14,000 more than 600 organic shares and above 13,000 mentions on Instagram. 

On ground, it resulted in increasing the sales of the brand at least three times of their then national average, a 20% rise in consumer interactions and a 40% increase in awareness of their makeup range. 

Raksha Jyoti

The theme of this campaign is to open one's house to Goddess Lakshmi without fear of a mosquito menace during Diwali. 

The ad shows a house fully decked on the occasion of Diwali with the bother opening all the doors and windows. Her son questions her about this, reminding her that she doesn't usually allow to open the windows during the evenings. The mother then explains the child the significance of opening up the house to let the Goddess of prosperity enter the house. At this, he comes out with a bow and arrow to protect the household from mosquitoes. The mother then explains that Mortien's Raksha Jyoti will do the job for them, prompting him to ensure all the doors and windows of the house are open. 

"Mortein's enduring mission has been safeguarding Indian households against the perils of dengue and malaria. While Diwali symbolizes welcoming Goddess Lakshmi into your home, by opening your doors and windows, it inadvertently invites the menace of deadly mosquitoes to your family and yourself. Hence, we introduced the "Raksha Jyoti" initiative, leveraging the power of compelling storytelling to gently prompt people across India to switch on their Mortein LVs on the day of Diwali. This way, they can preserve their cherished traditions without compromising on their safety from mosquitoes,” explains Ramaswamy. 

She further said that as a brand that aims at making India free from Dengue and Malaria, there was an opportunity at Mortein to deal with this problem without giving up on our cherished ritual. Hence, the idea of "Raksha Jyoti" - a diya with mosquito repellant which will fight mosquitoes when lit up was tied up to the festival of lights. “Like this, we dealt with a serious problem without affecting the sentiments people have for this festival,” she added. 

The impact

With an impression of 51 million views, the ad was seen in more than 25,000 households. It resulted in the search volume of the brand to rise by 43%. The 

Brand Connection scores increased by 12 and there was a 31% increase in it being seen as reliable brand. The ad also saw an improvement in brand perception with a 22% increase in being viewed as a protector of loved ones, and a 17% increase in being perceived as smart and well-versed in the latest technology. 96% of the viewers expressed a desire for the product for all future Diwalis.