MAM
Three metals for India in Media Lions
MUMBAI: In the Media Lions category, day three at Cannes brought India good news as Leo Burnett bagged the Silver metal for its Ink Pad campaign for Door Step School along with Cheil Worldwide for Samsung Printers’ Minus One Project.
Joining the metals bandwagon, BBDO and Mediacom secured a Bronze for Gillete’s You Shave. I Shave. campaign.
India‘s performance in the Mobile category was bleak as it had no shortlisted entries. In the Creative Effectiveness category, it also scored a blank. Being the only shortlisted entry, Creativeland Asia failed to pick up any metal in the category.
BBH London’s work for Axe titled ‘Even Angels will Fall’ won the Grand Prix in Creative Effectiveness category. Manning Gottlieb OMD (Google Voice Search) and Grow Interactive (Google) won the Media and Mobile Grand Prix respectively.
Of a total 3,200 entries, 303 were shortlisted and in the end 113 campaigns were awarded with only 12 receiving Gold. The art of storytelling and use of technology were some of the criteria used for adjudging the winners.
Leo Burnett’s Ink Pad campaign for Door Step School was an effort towards increasing awareness and participation in the client’s adult literacy drive. The objective of the promotion was to give uninterested adults the first taste of how much fun learning could be.
In order to bring illiterate adults, Leo Burnett placed a transparent sheet with cut-outs of the alphabets of Hindi (Devanagari script) on top of a regular ink pad which allowed illiterate individuals to print their name. A door to door activation was conducted with the help of local volunteers using the ink pad and thus turning the symbol of illiteracy – the thumb imprint – into a tool to write and encourage people to enroll for the adult literacy programme.
The target of Cheil Worldwide’s campaign for Samsung Printers, titled Minus One Project, was to encourage sustainable printing practices and was targeted at existing and new customers.
The Minus One Project encouraged people to print documents after reducing the font size by just one unit. This reduced the number of pages required to print the document by up to 50 per cent and people could save trees even while taking printouts. Hence they found a solution relevant for the brand as well as nature. Minus One was adopted by many corporate organisations, schools, colleges and other institutes and presented Samsung Printers as a brand that comes up with smart solutions for complex problems.
As a part of the campaign Hindi author Premchand’s classic ‘Gaban‘ re-printed in one size less than in the original copy, having around 25,000 copies in the first print run saving more than 3,50,000 paper sheets. In all, a total of 73 organisations, schools and colleges adopted the idea and took the ‘Minus One Pledge‘.
BBDO’s campaign for Gillete took the unconventional route and showed women shave their legs in public to egg on their male counterparts to shave as well. Thus the name ‘You Shave. I Shave‘. The campaign roped in actors Neha Dhupia and Arbaaz Khan for the exercise where the former shaved her legs in public to get Khan to do so as well.
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.
