MediaCom Australia’s Cameron Roberts and Hayley Saddleton were awarded Bronze at the Cannes Young Lions Competition in the media category held this week in Cannes, France.
The team competed against 32 other nations on the world stage, with each team given 24 hours to come up with a response to the brief which this year was for Lotus Flower, a non-profit that supports women and girls impacted by conflict and displacement.
Each team pitched their ideas to a panel of industry experts, this year lead by Kate Ivory, managing partner at OM, Lars Samuelson, chief strategy officer and head of digital at Uncle Grey and David McCallen, head of strategy at OMD.
The Aussie pair’s response centred around the dichotomy around New Year resolutions.
January 1st marks a day of celebration and self-reflection for millions of young people in developed countries. More than half of millennial women made self-care their New Year’s resolution in 2018.
However this same date also marks the date for millions of refugees who can’t prove their identity. Unlike developed countries, January 1st is a moment of un-wanted self-reflection for refugees. It is a constant reminder of their displacement.
Their core insight was that the first day of each New Year has two sides of self-reflection; whilst we make our New Year’s resolutions, 9.18 million refugees are mourning the death of their identity.
It was this that helped them come up with their idea: 01/01 New Year Resolutions for Refugee Restitution.
The idea was to bring a new perspective to New Year’s resolutions by encouraging audiences to donate their resolutions and stand in solidarity with women who are fighting for their real identity and learning to love themselves again.
It starts with organic reach. The team’s current network of celebrities and influencers and their own social pages will spark the conversation in the lead up to New Year’s Eve.
The most important thing is about getting the audience to the website, where they can select which New Year’s resolution they want to donate to. Each donor receives The Lotus Flower merchandise to encourage posting on social media to spread the word about 01/01.
The judges obviously liked the idea with Roberts and Saddleton winning bronze. Silver went to South Korea and Gold was awarded to Colombia.
The pair previously competed in Australia’s two local Young Lions competition rounds, sponsored by Snapchat and The Trade Desk, amongst nearly 200 total entries to be named the Australian Young Media team heading to Cannes.
This year’s Aussie Marketing Young Lions winners Jill Harmon and Nathan Young of CommBank cheered along their fellow Aussie Young Lions falling just short themselves of a place the day prior.
The Digital Young Lions competition winners will be announced tomorrow with DDB’s Elaine Li and Jared Wicker competing.
