Indian agencies win four graphite and five wooden pencils at the D&AD Awards 2021

Wunderman Thompson won three pencils. Ogilvy Mumbai and Taproot Dentsu won two pencils each. Famous Innovations and BBDO India bagged one pencil each.

Indian agencies won a total of nine pencils, while also scoring five shortlists in the D&AD Awards 2021.

Taproot Dentsu’s ‘Pooja Didi’ ad film for Facebook won a wooden pencil for casting and a graphite pencil for sound design and use of music.

‘Pooja Didi’ is the story of a 28-year-old woman Pooja. She uses Facebook to find people who have lost their jobs, and keeps hiring them, even though she doesn’t need them. These people come through for her, again using Facebook, to tell the world about her selflessness and help in saving her shop.

Famous Innovations won a wooden pencil in the 'experiential' category for the campaign The Apple gram for Radio Zindagi.

When the Indian government revoked Kashmir's special status, a lockdown and communication blackout was imposed, cutting the state off from the rest of India. This affected everything, except the state’s apple trade. So, 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.

Ogilvy won a wooden as well as a graphite pencil, both in the casting categories, for the film ‘The Artist’ for ITC.

During the COVID pandemic, India was saturated with handwashing messages sent by everyone, from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the local brands. Soon, people started ignoring them. So to get their attention back, Ogilvy Mumbai chose a person without hands to promote handwashing. In the film, Swapna, a foot artist, is seen using her feet to paint, make tea, apply makeup, etc.

Wunderman Thompson Mumbai won a wooden and a graphite pencil for the categories photography, and sound design and use of music. The pencils were won for the campaign 'Save Our Sentinels' for the Jimmy Nelson Foundation.

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

Wunderman Thompson India won a wooden pencil in the 'branding' category for the campaign Jeep Iconography for Jeep.

The Jeep Iconography is an experience design solution to bring alive the iconic 'oIIIIIIIo' front grill as the visual signature of Jeep using hundreds of indigenous symbols and native elements from different regions of the world and animating them to the rousing beats of an original soundtrack.

BBDO India won a graphite pencil in the 'impact' category for the campaign Share the Load for P&G's Ariel.

Since 2015, Ariel has been leading the conversation around gender inequality in India. #ShareTheLoad redefined the idea of purpose-led performance in a category dominated by functional promises. It took deep-rooted patriarchy head on with a question – “Is laundry only a woman’s job?”