MAM
BSLI’s ‘How Many’ ad campaign reaches Cannes
MUMBAI: In late June, a Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI) ad campaign made it to the Mecca of advertising awards – the Cannes film festival.
The ‘How many’ ad for BSLI, created by Concept Communications and produced by Steam Engine Productions, was one of the three Indian entries that made it to the Cannes Film shortlist.
Winning creatives always are a derivative of a good client brief. BSLI CEO Nani Javeri says: “The effort represents a synergistic approach to marketing and communications wherein the ad agency and the BSLI team formulate the path ahead by working closely. As far as BSLI is concerned, effective communication and social responsibility go hand in hand.”
It takes an inspired adman to deliver the goods based on the brief. Concept’s creative director Sanjay Sule says: “The intention was to position Birla Sun Life as a responsible and socially conscious corporate citizen – an entity that thinks beyond insurance. That’s why we picked up the issue of smoking.”
The ad film uses memorable visuals to make an immediate impact on the viewer. The ad starts off by showing a small room in which a man who is the head of the family is smoking. The camera also pans the other members – an 80-year old grandmother, children including a six month old baby amongst others – who are closeted into the matchbox-like tenement. The other members of the family exhale while the head of the family inhales the cigarette smoke. Very effectively, without even using any voice-over, the BSLI drives home the point that passive smoking is injurious to your family’s health. The underlying element is “How many cigarettes do you smoke with your family every day?”
“The theme was so striking and hard-hitting that the BSLI team approved it in the first sitting itself. We shot the ad film in two days and the everything including the post production work was completed within 10 days. We shot with ordinary people and only the lead actor (the man of the family) and the wife are professional ad commercial artistes,” says Sule.
The film was aired on premier business channels such as CNBC India. When asked whether he knew that the ad would win accolades, a modest Sule says: “I had a gut feeling that it would be appreciated. We are happy that out of the two entries sent to Cannes, one of them made waves. All credit to the team and the client for having the guts to experiment with new concepts.”
The Birla Sun Life nomination is definitely raise the creative bar for Concept. “We are ready to face the challenge and are already thinking of similar concepts!” added Sule with a glint in his eyes.
The BSLI-Concept team is looking forward to win more awards for its latest innovative direct marketing ad campaign.
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
