MUMBAI: Seven Indian entries have been shortlisted in the Direct Lions category at Cannes Lions 2012. While BBDO India has got two entries shortlisted, McCann World Group, Leo Burnett, O&M, DDB Mudra Group and Cheil Worldwide have gained themselves one spot each.

BBDO India‘s entries were shortlisted in sub categories - ‘Dimensional Mailing‘ and ‘Direct Response Digital: Email Marketing‘ for its campaigns for Johnson‘s Baby and Child Welfare Fund respectively.

The campaign for Johnson‘s Baby, titled India‘s First D.I.Y. Calendar for Babies, was targeted at new and first-time mothers with the key objective being to design a piece that would not just be a calendar, but engage mothers and help increase their play time with their baby.

The D.I.Y. calendar was designed to showcase the different stages of the first 12 months of the baby‘s life, leading to his/her first birthday. Each month represented a different piece of baby article that instructed the mother about the new things she should introduce to her baby.

Its second entry, titled World‘s Youngest Job Applicant, was targeted towards senior executives in corporations to help fund the education of underprivileged children. Using the insight that most senior executives normally do not delete an email job application, BBDO created job applications with attached CVs of underprivileged children and e-mailed them to these executives. The CVs detailed the hardships these kids went through in an effort to get a basic education for themselves, and went on to tell the reader that with his help these children could one day apply for the same job.

Earning it the second nomination at this year‘s Cannes Lions, Leo Burnett‘s Ink Pad campaign for Door Step School has been shortlisted in the sub category Ambient Media & Print Collateral, Non-Mail (Small Scale). The initiative 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.

DDB Mudra Group‘s second shortlist came in the form of its campaign Growing Trees for Prism Papyrus Private / Fedrigoni in the sub category Business Products and Services. The objective was to create awareness about Fedrigoni‘s new range of recycled papers and subsequently increase sales. The target audience, drawn from both existing and new customers, was corporate print buyers and sellers in Mumbai.

In order to drive the point home, the DDB Mudra Group used a design innovation instead of using a conventional poster. Making the exercise more appropriate to the brand that is fiercely eco-friendly, these posters were printed on Fedrigoni‘s recycled papers. Thus, rather than preach about the benefits of using recycling paper, the innovation demonstrated the same in a visually-engaging manner.

McCann Worldgroup has been shortlisted in the sub category of Dimensional Mailing for its work for SaReGaMa India titled Keeping The Legend Alive. The objective of the campaign was to maintain interest in the Sawai Gandharva music festival after the passing away of its founder Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

To grab eyeballs, McCann used SaReGaMa‘s tapes of the late Panditji‘s recordings to create his musical portraits where each portrait was intricately weaved using over 1,100 meters of tape. Five musical portraits were created and each was brought to life with the legend‘s voice, using the audio CD on the canvas.

O&M‘s shortlisted entry this year is its campaign named iFold for Vodafone India in the sub category Best Low Budget Campaign. The aim of the campaign was to spread awareness about saving paper. The idea was to encourage people to fold their bills and other correspondence extra in order to use smaller envelopes thus saving paper.

Cheil Worldwide‘s Minus One Project, which it conceptualised for Samsung Printers, has been shortlisted in the Corporate Image and Information sub category. The target of the campaign 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.