Indian agencies bring home 4 Graphite and 5 Wood Pencils at the D&AD awards

Taproot Dentsu, Wunderman Thompson and Ogilvy Mumbai brought home awards this year.

Taproot Dentsu’s ad for Facebook titled ‘Pooja Didi’ brought home a Graphite Pencil for Sound Design and Use of Music and a Wood Pencil for Casting. The ad was part of Facebook’s 2020 Diwali campaign titled ‘More Together.’

Pooja Didi tells the story of 28-year-old Pooja, who uses Facebook to find people who have lost their jobs, who she keeps hiring – even though she doesn’t need them. These same people come through for her, again using Facebook, to tell the world about her selflessness and save her shop.

Ogilvy Mumbai’s campaign for ITC Savlon – emphasising on the importance of handwashing during the pandemic also won awards. The entry titled ‘The Artist’ won a Graphite Pencil and a Wood Pencil for Casting. To bring the message of the importance of handwashing to life, Ogilvy Mumbai chose a handless person to promote handwashing.

In the film, Swapna, a foot artist, is seen using her feet to paint, make tea, apply make-up, etc. When offered a sweet dish she stops before picking it up, to say that she never forgets to use handwash. After washing her feet with handwash she simply asks, “If it's so easy for me to use handwash, why don't you?” This left people with no excuse to avoid handwashing.

BBDO India won a Graphite Pencil in the Impact category for their long term work on Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad campaign.

Famous Innovations work for client Radio Zindagi, titled ‘The Applegram’ won a Wood Pencil in the Experiential / Out-of-Home category. When the Indian government revoked Kashmir's special status, a lockdown and communication blackout was imposed, cutting off Kashmir from the rest of India.

This affected everything except the state’s apple trade. Radio Zindagi volunteers went door-to-door distributing “Tell them I’m Safe” stickers. All people had to do was add their name and the name and contact number of someone they wanted to convey the message to. With hundreds of apple trucks leaving every day, the stickers were pasted on to 40,000 apples that journeyed to over 150 markets across India.

Wunderman Thompson India won awards for two entries. They won a Wood Pencil in the Branding category for their work on the Jeep Iconography. The agency also won two Pencils for their entry titled ‘Save Our Sentinels’. The entry bagged the team a Graphite Pencil in the Sound Design & Use of Music category and a Wood Pencil in the Photography category.

Save Our Sentinels is an indigenous musical narrative and a powerful visual commentary on the last sentinels of our natural reserves; the last 36 indigenous tribes standing still.

The rare still photographs are stitched together from thousands of images of the last tribes interspersed with the rarest footage of their ancient habitats. The original soundtrack is a multilingual musical expression of indigenous life lessons from ancient tribal sayings, shaman chants and forgotten folk songs from all the tribes featured in the film. Blink. And they're gone.