Cannes 2014: India Wins 2 Direct Lions, 4 PR Lions

Winning agencies include McCann (Direct), O&M (PR) and Havas (PR).

India has won Lions in two award categories so far - Direct Lions (2) and PR Lions (4).

Direct Lions:

In Direct, both Lions are Silver and have been pulled in by McCann Worldgroup Mumbai for the same campaign - Share My Dabba - for Happy Life Welfare & Dabbawala Foundation.

For this campaign, the team partnered with Mumbai's famed dabbawala network to alleviate the problem of hunger on the streets of Mumbai. Daily, 2,00,000 children go hungry ad two starve to death. Through a 'Share Sticker', the dabbawalas were alerted to dabbas that contained un-eaten food; they shared these 'marked' dabbas with children in need. As a result, through just two hubs in the city, thousands of hungry children were fed. Besides catching the attention of India's Human Resource Minister and netizens alike, the effort also inspired private lunch services to follow suit.

PR Lions:

In the PR category, India brings home four Lions. Winning agencies include O&M (3) and Havas Worldwide India (1).

Among O&M's Lions are one Silver Lion and two Bronze Lions. The Silver is for Google India's touching Reunion film that promotes the brand's 'search' feature. Interestingly, this campaign also won a Bronze Lion. O&M's second Bronze Lion is for its Message Barter campaign for The Akanksha Foundation (Akanksha Foundation Schools).

Read all about Google's Reunion film here.

What is the Message Barter campaign? - Akanksha, an NGO that provides free education to over 5,000 under-privileged children, was in dire need of teachers. This campaign 'forced' Indian celebrities to spread the word that the organisation was short on staff. Here's how: the NGO carried out promotional activities for the nation's leading celebs (including Amitabh Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Hritik Roshan and Chetan Bhagat) without their knowledge. Videos of the same were then sent to the celebs along with a plea to tell their fans to teach. Almost all the celebs responded. Overall, 18 million people were reached, the campaign generated coverage worth a million USD at almost no cost at all, the NGO's website traffic increased four times and teacher applications increased 2.5 times.

Havas' Bronze Lion in this category is for the No Child Brides campaign for Child Survival India. So what is this campaign all about? Well, this campaign was basically a CSI initiative aimed at fighting the evil of child marriage in India. The effort was hinged on a 6 by 4 feet art installation that was created using 39,000 white bindis (as that's the number of child brides India sees every day).

From far, the girl's face on this giant installation looks like she's wearing a red bindi (something that symbolises being married, in India) but as one moves closer, the dot turns white - a 'peaceful' movement against child marriage.

The effort generated 22 million media impressions, 1.5 million college students supported the cause, 10,468 'white bindi pictures' were shared, 60,000+ white bindis were sold, and 160 villages started their own awareness drives to eradicate the evil of child marriages.

No Creative Effectiveness Lion for India this year. Seven entries won in this category; they belong to Australia (3, including Grand Prix), UK (3) and Brazil (1).

No Promo & Activation Lion for India this year.

Catch up on all the latest updates from the Cannes Lions - International Festival of Creativity here.