MAM
Mindshare wins ‘Media Network of the Year’ award at Cannes 2019
MUMBAI: Mindshare, the media agency network and part of WPP, recently got awarded ‘Media Network of the Year’ at one of the most coveted festival of creativity, Cannes Lions 2019. The agency won a Silver in the Media Lions category for HUL Lifebuoy’s ‘Infection Alert System’ and a Bronze in the Creative Data Lions category for the same campaign.
79 per cent of rural consumers use the basic ‘Feature Phone’ which has no internet connectivity. This medium has 6 times higher reach than any other medium in rural areas. The solution was to create a data-led Infection Alert System that would act as a lighthouse to alert the rural consumers when they were most vulnerable to fatal diseases. This was done by leveraging data and the reach of mobile phones in traditionally media dark geographies. Over 64 million Outbound Dialler (OBD) calls were made over a period of 8 weeks to warn the locals on the outbreak of a particular communicable disease in their area and the necessary preventive measures that should be taken.
The Infection Alert System (IAS) also known as ‘Adaptive Data Lighthouse’ was created by Mindshare and used Government of India data on disease outbreaks which was collected from 34,000 rural community health centres across 822 sub-districts/villages of Uttar Pradesh & Bihar. The challenges with this data were that it was unstructured, maintained in paper-forms, in local languages with no metadata standards. Old paper records were digitised and then algorithms used to read and load data into a structured database of 21 communicable diseases. Historical disease incidence was modelled to arrive at predictive incidence rates at a village level, using time series models. If predicted severity of disease incidence for villages were above a certain threshold then warning calls would be activated for those villages only and not the entire state.
The insight behind the campaign was that most Indians eat and feed food using their hands and wash hands without soap. This practice is rampant in rural areas in India which make them susceptible to various communicable diseases. Mindshare’s campaign is a bright example of purpose-driven marketing. The driving force behind the Lifebuoy brand is an inspiring vision for more hygienic, healthier environment and to create vital communities which the campaign embodied. MA Parthasarathy (MAPS) said, “Reaching out to rural consumers has always been a challenge for brands. 70 per cent of Lifebuoy’s sales come from rural India. Building on Lifebuoy’s identity of being a purpose-driven brand, we utilised two of Mindshare’s core pillars- data and technology to create an innovation which made scalable difference. Awards like these motivate teams who were heavily invested in making this a success and also assure us that we are doing some great work.”
“The Lifebuoy “Infection Alert System” brings together some really sharp brand insight with deep media expertise to deliver relevant messaging in a precise fashion to the target audience. The collaboration across various teams on the brand side, media agency and extended partners who helped us land this at a tremendous scale is truly noteworthy. And, the impact along with the recognition is the true testimony of the power of the idea and the validation of the flawless execution by the teams. The Cannes wins make the winning streak of Lifebuoy “Infection Alert System” even more special.” said Hindustan Unilever Limited general manager – media (South Asia) Gaurav Jeet Singh.
“It’s a proud moment for HUL and Mindshare on the recent Cannes Lions wins for the Lifebuoy Infection Alert System. A fine realisation of data-driven marketing, the campaign made the best use of unstructured data on disease outbreaks and institutionalise an infection alert system in the hinterland. This warning system would alert consumers most at risk of life-threatening diseases through an automatic calling system. Being contextual to the prevalent disease in their village, consumer receptivity was high resulting in high recall,” commented Hindustan Unilever Limited executive director, beauty and personal care Sandeep Kohli.
“It's been quite a journey putting this together and implementing it at scale. This award is a fantastic recognition of the effort that Mindshare, the media and brand teams have put in,” Kohli added.
“The purpose of our brand Lifebuoy, India’s largest selling soap, is to help millions of mothers stay one step ahead of infections so that their children fall sick less often. We were able to do this through ‘our infection alert system’, which has won at Cannes, by leveraging data and the reach of mobile phones in traditionally media dark geographies, to ensure we live our purpose.” commented Hindustan Unilever Limited vice president – marketing Harman Dhillon.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
