Time is running out to get your entry in for the Cairns Hatchlings 2026–this is your chance to give your career a crocodile-sized kickstart. Any and all up-and-coming leaders of the advertising, media, and marketing industries need a Cairns Hatchlings trophy on their mantlepiece.
And, we’re paying for all finalists’ flights and accommodation—from wherever in the Asia-Pacific region! Entries close tomorrow (5 February) – it’s now or never, enter now!
Annabel Cook and Maddy Merzvinskis didn’t think they’d walk away with a Design trophy last year. But by the end of their time in Cairns, that wasn’t even what mattered most.
“It didn’t matter whether we won or not because we’d had such a great time and were so happy with the work,” Cook said.
“But then, as we awaited the awards night, our competitive streaks came out. Coming away with the very cute trophy was certainly the cherry on top of an awesome week in Cairns,” Merzvinskis said.
“Hatchlings forced us to follow our instincts and make quick decisions. We had to lean into hardcore collaboration and put a lot of trust in each other. It was cool to see what the process that we normally follow over several weeks looks and feels like when condensed into such a short timeframe – balancing research and thinking time with just getting things on the page,” Cook said.
The duo’s ‘The Power of Adventure’ reimagined Women on a Mission (WOAM) as not just a charity, but a bold, adventure-driven leadership platform.
“It was super rewarding to take part in the Hatchlings competition and get to work on a meaningful brief for an awesome organisation,” Cook said.
The duo have even gone on to work with WOAM to develop and implement the brand. It’s testament to putting yourself out there: “You never know what might come out of entering,” Cook said.
“We learnt from WOAM’s case studies that women take away really valuable leadership skills from the missions. Our brief was to engage corporate partners, so we felt it was important to highlight this mutual benefit. By taking part in a WOAM expedition, women can support women in war-affected areas and gain skills, experiences and perspectives that are just as valuable in the boardroom as they are on the top of a mountain,” Merzvinskis said.
If Cook and Merzvinskis’s experience inspires you, why not make this the year you give Cairns Hatchlings a go! Late entries close tomorrow (5 February) – enter now!
They leveraged WOAM’s unique spirit of extreme expeditions to attract and engage corporate partners. Their strategy included a brand refresh featuring trail-inspired visuals, a manifesto celebrating women’s resilience, and an interactive digital map showcasing WOAM’s global impact.
“There’s a sea of sameness in the way charities show up. Our challenge was to help WOAM stand out. What felt really unique to us about the organisation was their incredible adventurous spirit – it’s in their DNA and at the core of what they do. It’s also a really rich visual world to borrow from, so it made a lot of sense to lean into that idea,” Cook said.
“Our brand system is inspired by adventure, fit with journey lines, trail markers and map grids. These elements speak directly to the physical expeditions that the women undertake, as well as the transformational journeys that they go on by being involved with WOAM. The interactive map on the landing page of the website connects these epic adventures with the impact they are having across the globe. It was important to use this as an opportunity to emphasise the credibility of the brand and show how much they’ve already been able to achieve,” Cook added.
To drive corporate engagement, they proposed targeted LinkedIn campaigns, testimonial-led storytelling, and a pitch positioning WOAM as a corporate training partner offering transformative leadership experiences through expeditions – ultimately blending purpose with professional growth.
“We had to make sure that the brand still felt ‘in category’, while standing out among that sea of sameness. In the concepting phase, we pushed it pretty far and realised we were looking and sounding too much like a hiking brand, so we had to rein it back in,” Merzvinskis said.
We kept reminding ourselves that our goal was to engage new corporate partners—in fact, we had it written down on a piece of paper that we stuck on the wall and recited every hour, on the hour—and we did that by making sure we were highlighting the impactful, capacity-building aspects of the experiences so that the power of adventure would connect with the corporate audience”.
The Cairns Hatchlings experience is a pressure cooker for pushing creatives further than they would normally go – it’s why so many emerging professionals emerge from Cairns with new skills and confidence.
If you might struggle to meet the deadline, request an extension here.
