MAM
Cannes 2011: BBDO’s ‘W.A.L.S’ shortlisted
MUMBAI: BBDO India has made it to the shortlist of the newly introduced Creative Effectiveness Lions category at the 58th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity currently taking place in Cannes, France.
The agency’s campaign — ‘W.A.L.S‘ Women Against Lazy Stubble — executed for Procter & Gamble’s Gillette Mach3 brand has been recommended.
According to an official statement, only entries that were either shortlisted or Lion winners, across all categories, at Cannes Lions 2010 were eligible to enter, since these were already been judged and established as being creatively world-class by last year’s juries.
Hence, ‘W.A.L.S‘ could enter, because it had won the prestigious Silver Cannes Lion in the category ‘PR Led Integrated Campaign‘ at the 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival. It was the first PR medal for India at Cannes and was won amidst over 500 other path-breaking global entries.
BBDO‘s campaign for Gillette was concieved around an AC Nielsen India survey, which claimed that 85 per cent of Indian women preferred clean-shaven men. This prompmted the launched of Shave India Movement (SIM), encouraging men to shave, simultaneously unveiling the Gillette Mach3 razor.
Tapping women and celebrities, a Women Against Lazy Stubble (W.A.L.S) group was formed to carry the message to men. Culminating in a mass Shaveathon, SIM brought together 1,858 men making history by breaking both Indian and world shaving records and resulting in Gillette achieving its quarter sales target in just 15 days of the campaign.
The other communication agencies were Mediacom and Encompass. ROI was recorded as 22 times the marketing spend, according to Gillette.
The campaign ran from November – December 2009, and concentrated on urban Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and smaller towns such as Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
Meanwhile, in its inaugural year, the Creative Effectiveness Lions category, has received 142 entries from 33 countries, of which seven entries were from India.
TBWAWorldwide Chairman Jean-Marie Dru is the president of the 20-strong member jury, who will award Creative Effectiveness Lions to entries which have shown measurable and proven impact on a client’s business.
The judging process is based on Strategy (25 per cent), Idea (25 per cent) and Results (50 per cent).
MAM
Beacon Group appoints Dr Rajesh Patel as Group CEO
36-year healthcare veteran to lead Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek, Biogeny.
MUMBAI: A new chief, a fresh diagnosis and a sharper prescription for growth. Beacon Group has appointed Dr Rajesh Patel as its Group Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2026, signalling a decisive push to scale its presence in the diagnostics and IVD space. Patel steps into the role with 36 years of experience across the healthcare and diagnostics industry, bringing a career shaped by leadership roles spanning sales, marketing, business development and operational strategy. His mandate is both expansive and precise: to steer the group’s overall strategic direction while tightening coordination across its three core entities Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek and Biogeny Diagnostics.
In practical terms, that means driving cross-company synergies, accelerating market expansion and strengthening organisational capability areas increasingly critical as diagnostic players compete for scale in a fragmented yet rapidly evolving healthcare ecosystem. The group is positioning itself to capture unmet demand across chain laboratories, key accounts and standalone labs, segments that remain underserved despite growing diagnostic needs.
The appointment comes at a time when the In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) sector in India is entering a more competitive and innovation-led phase, with companies focusing not just on product pipelines but also on service delivery, integration and customer-centric models. Beacon’s leadership appears to be betting that Patel’s execution-focused approach can help translate ambition into operational momentum.
Welcoming the appointment, Chairman Dr D K Joshi described Patel’s induction as a strategic move aligned with the group’s long-term vision, emphasising the role of leadership depth in navigating the next phase of growth.
For Beacon Group, the message is clear, in a sector where precision matters, leadership is the new differentiator—and this appointment is intended to set the tone for what comes next.
