Happy to see campaign with a purpose getting recognised at Cannes: Ravi Santhanam

So happy to see a campaign with a purpose and strong ground response getting recognised at Cannes with a silver lion, said Ravi Santhanam, Group Head, CMO, Head-Direct to Consumer Business, HDFC Bank, as he celebrated the brand's ‘Lulumelon EOSS’ campaign winning a Silver at the Cannes Lions 2024.

“Financial frauds are a big issue in India. We at HDFC Bank has been always at the forefront of communicating with our customers and Indians on how not to fall prey. Our very own social media influencer Vigilaunty has been spearheading our efforts over the last two years. So happy to see a campaign with a purpose and strong ground response getting recognised at Cannes with a silver lion,” said Santhanam.

The campaign got FCB Kinnect its first metal for the season. The campaign, which featured Nora Fatehi and Anu Menon, revolved around making people aware of online scams. They created a fake brand called ‘Lulumelon’ and targeted ads for it creating a lot of buzz on social media. They used a deepfake version of Nora announcing big discounts. But when people clicked on the brand link, they were directed to a website where ‘Vigil Aunty’ or Anu Menon talked about ad frauds.  

It was all done before releasing the ad film in which Nora revealed the intent behind creating this brand, making people aware of cyber frauds that could happen in the name of online shopping and discounts.  

Elated with the win, Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, FCB Group India & South Asia said, “This is a great validation for the work we are doing for HDFC bank over the years. This is a long running platform that FCB Kinnect has built for fraud prevention. I am so happy because this is real work for a large brand. Big congratulations to our teams and clients who’ve made this possible.”