Countdown to Cannes 2012: DDB Mudra's Lion hopes dependent on four brands

The agency is optimistic about winning Lions at Cannes 2012, courtesy its ads for the brands Coffee Gold, Stedfast Shredders, Fedrigoni Paper and Blossom Books, that have been entered across award categories.

Mudra created waves at last year's International Festival of Creativity at Cannes with its Silent National Anthem creation for Big Cinemas. afaqs! finds out that the agency hopes to re-create the magic this year with its work for Coffee Gold, Stedfast Shredders, Blossom Books and Fedrigoni Paper.

The agency's work for Coffee Gold has been entered in the Design, Direct, Promo & Activation, Press, and Outdoor Lions categories. The work for Stedfast Shredders has the potential to bring home Lions in the Design, Direct, Press and Outdoor categories. The agency's creatives for Blossom Books have been entered in the Promo & Activation, Press and Outdoor categories. And, the work for Fedrigoni is a potential winner in the Direct, Promo and Outdoor categories.

All the creatives for the brand Stedfast Shredders demonstrate the effectiveness of the product in a humorous manner. The ads are presented as copies of important documents bearing highly sensitive information that have been shredded and then pieced together -- for instance a document bearing details about JF Kennedy's assassination. The quality of the product is brought out by the fact that the documents make absolutely no sense despite attempts to piece the bits of shredded paper back together. The insight used is that confidential matter is often subject to re-arrangement and deciphering, post-shredding. The copy in each ad ends with the words 'They'll never put the story back together.'

"The campaign shows highly confidential, classified reports jumbled up to make a nonsensical yet engaging story. It says everything about the efficiency of the product and does it in a very smart way. The idea will hopefully make the jury sit up and take notice and get some metal for us," enthuses Sonal Dabral, chairman and chief creative officer, DDB Mudra Group.

The creatives for Coffee Gold also draw on real life events. The ads utilise the simple insight that coffee helps keep people alert. However, this straightforward insight is executed in a rather elaborate and complicated manner - each of the three ads bears a complicated pictorial description of a series of events that begin due to one person's lack of alertness and end in a catastrophe. Disasters such as the New York Blackout, Armenian Internet Shutdown and Great Fire of London are depicted in the ads and attributed to lack of alertness, something that could've been avoided with Coffee Gold.

Dabral explains, "Ideas that win at Cannes are those that are simple, surprising, almost always based on an original strategy and executed brilliantly. The campaigns that I feel could win at Cannes have all these ingredients. Coffee Gold posters recreate real disasters that happened in the course of history because someone within the chain was not alert enough -- a fresh way of presenting strong coffee."

The agency's ads for Blossom Books position books in general as products that open up readers' imagination. The creatives show how a book can lead to multiple mental images (as opposed to movies) because each reader brings part of himself/herself to the book and identifies with the characters in his/her own unique way.

Lastly, DDB Mudra also has high expectations from its ad for Fedrigoni's new range of recycled papers. Prism Papyrus, exclusive distributor for Fedrigoni paper, was looking to promote the product and drive offices to switch to this eco-friendly option. The brand's target audience comprises corporate print buyers and sellers in Mumbai. The agency designed a series of posters using a technique based on the capillary action of ink on paper -- as the ink spread, a tree started taking shape on each poster, quite literally growing in front of people's eyes. Dabral's team hopes the visual impact of a tree coming to life will impress the jury at Cannes 2012.