Telenor Pakistan’s digital birth certificate app wins big at Cannes Mobile Grand Prix. Beating a shortlist of over 200, two campaigns took home the Grand Prix for the media category on the second day of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this week: the City of Chicago and Pakistan’s second-largest mobile carrier, Telenor Pakistan.
The project was called, “Naming the invisible by digital birth registration”
Telenor Pakistan’s project was in collaboration with UNICEF to give digital birth certificates to unregistered children in Pakistan was based on the fact that there are more than 60 million unregistered children in the country, which would mean a life without access to medical care, social security, public schooling or protection from underage marriage and child labor.
This problem is particularly prevalent among children born at home, in backward areas, and among the illiterate people of Pakistan.
Tapping into the increased adoption of mobile phones in Pakistan, Telenor and Ogilvy developed a digital birth registration initiative that would create a legal path to a birth certificate for 60 million unregistered children in the country.
1st ever Cannes Grand Prix Award for PAKISTAN: Telenor Pakistan &Ogilvy won @ Cannes Media Lions Grand Prix for its campaign for Naming the Invisible by Digital Birth Registration It is also the 1st ever Cannes Grand Prix Award ever won by PAKISTAN @Sigve_telenor @irfanwahabkhan pic.twitter.com/ckJQQPZbnh
— Muhammad Azfar Ahsan (@MAzfarAhsan) June 24, 2021
A simple Android app by Telenor receives and reports birth counts from health workers, marriage registrars, and Telenor distribution centers.
The telecom company has also won a Sustainable Development Goals Pencil at The One Show and a bronze Clio Award in the past.
Read More: UN chief pays tributes to 6 Pakistanis
Other Winners
Other Grand Prix winners were: Creative Business Transformation – Marcel Paris and Carrefour ‘Act for food;’ Creative ecommerce – FCB Inferno for The Big Issue and LinkedIn, ‘Raising profiles’ (FCB is also having a good Cannes) and Draftline Bogotá for AB InBev, ‘Tienda Cerca.’
Creative Effectiveness – Wieden & Kennedy Portland for Nike, ‘Dream Crazy (this won big at Cannes in 2019),’ Brand Experience & Activation – David Madrid and David Miami for Burger King, ‘Stevenage challenge’ and McCann New York for Mastercard, ‘True name,’ Radio & Audio – Area 23 for Woojer, “Sick beats,’ Innovation – Wunderman Thompson Buenos Aires for Unilever, Degree Inclusive Deodorant.