Indian agency Mindshare Mumbai has won the Cannes Grand Prix Glass Lion for creating India’s first transgender music group—6 Pack Band—for Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL) brand Brooke Bond Red Label. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for the fields of communication and advertising. According to the festival’s website, the Glass Lion is an award that “celebrates culture-shifting creativity," and is presented to campaigns that try to positively impact ingrained gender biases and inequality.

In January, Mindshare Mumbai had—in collaboration with Y films, a division of Yash Raj Films Pvt Ltd—launched the 6 Pack Band with the music video Hum Hain Happy, a cover of popular Pharrell Williams’ hit track Happy. The video went on to be selected as a 2016 Official Honoree (under Public Service and Activism) by the Webby Awards, which recognize excellence on the Internet. The awards are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Hum Hain Happy has gathered more than 19 lakh views on YouTube, and was also circulated to live-streaming music apps like Wynk, Hungama, Gaana and Saavn. Various mobile operators in the country also offered a caller-tune version of the song for download.

According to figures sourced from the brand's official Cannes Lions A/V case study, the 6 Pack Band campaign earned the company a total PR value of ₹ 100 Million, and has reached over 25 million people.

At this year’s Cannes Lions, India has won three of the six ‘Glass Lions’ that were given away. While 6 Pack Band won the Grand Prix Glass Lion, the two other Glass Lions went to BBDO India’s Dads Share the Load ad campaign for Procter and Gamble’s Ariel detergent brand, and Ogilvy and Mather’s Beauty Tips By Reshma, which was made for the NGO Make Love Not Scars. While the former tried addressing gender discrepancies in sharing domestic chores, the latter was a campaign to check the easy availability and sale of acid that enabled attacks on women, that disfigured them for life.

The three other Glass Lion winning entries come from Lebanon, Sweden, and the UK.

Previously, in 2014 HUL had won 3 Golden Lions at the festival for their app-campaign Kan Khajura Tesan, which aimed to provide radio over mobile to the media dark areas in Bihar and Jharkhand, with partners PHD India and Lowe and Partners Worldwide.

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