Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett, Mumbai, won the Sustainable Development Goals Grand Prix Lion for “The Missing Chapter,” a campaign for Procter & Gamble Co.’s Whisper sanitary protection brand to bring period education to girls in India as a way to keep them in school.

The Sustainable Development Goals Lions, developed in coordination with the United Nations according to Philip Thomas, CEO of Events & Intelligence for Cannes operator Ascential, has wide leeway for considering work that advances environmental or social sustainability. And it just so happens that P&G and Publicis Groupe had not only the winner but also the runner-up.

This happened, perhaps ironically, on a week when P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard talked about flipping his “Force for Growth. Force for Good” slogan so growth comes first—though he did note a host of efforts on the “good” side of the ledger.

What it is

The Missing Chapter follows the story of an Indian schoolgirl who conspires with friends to print and distribute red flyers featuring in anatomical detail why and how girls have periods, and to encourage sanitary pads as a way of dealing with them.

Why it won

“We wanted to look at the work and authenticity across these categories, said Kimberlee Wells, jury president and CEO of TBWA Australia. The jury wanted to avoid “any form of washing,” Wells said, referring to greenwashing or perhaps woke washing, but not to cold water washing. (More on that in a minute.)

“We were also looking at real-world impact, that the work was not just purely to have a conversation but to actually drive change for the environment or for people,” she said. “We were also looking for unexpected bravery, something that really surprises you and would remind you that that is actually our job. And we were looking for scalability.”

The Whisper work aims to eliminate the problem of 23 million girls dropping out of school every year in India because of embarrassment over period taboos or inability to deal with periods.

“The red piece of paper became the symbol of our revolution,” according to Leo Burnett’s entry, and was in some cases read live on TV by commentators. It was adapted to 28 art styles and languages for even the remotest parts of India.

Controversy, or clear winner? 

“We were fairly unanimous from the outset,” Wells said. But one that “we did have quite a bit of conversation about” was Tide’s #TurnToCold campaign from Saatchi & Saatchi, New York (part of the P&G-focused multi-agency Woven Collaborative), which took a Gold Lion. The campaign aimed at getting people to wash more of their clothes in cold water, thereby saving energy and money. “What we loved about this is that it’s pure celebratory advertising tackling still a huge environmental problem,” Wells said.

Notable news

Andrew Swinand, CEO of Leo Burnett Group, also last year quietly became CEO of Publicis Groupe Creative and Production U.S., with oversight of Saatchi, BBH, Fallon and 13 agencies in all. The move was made without an announcement, he said, because Publicis Groupe didn’t want it to be couched as “another agency consolidation story.” 

But in the context of the Sustainable Development Group Grand Prix, it meant two agencies under Swinand's purview were in the running for the Grand Prix.

So, which of his so-called children does he love more?

Swinand didn’t exactly answer that question in an interview, but he noted that Publicis has put strong “creative strategy leaders” in place across agencies. And he said such honors come in part because global product committees are “focusing on results” and “beginning with an end in mind” by thinking about what the case study might actually look like and how it might solve a problem before the results are achieved. That approach—on an accelerated basis—also led to Leo Burnett’s Creative Commerce Grand Prix for the idea of tweaking Wingstop's name to “Thighstop” to promote the chicken wing chain's new offering of thighs when wings were more challenging to source.