From all over Ontario, 150 students participated in a contest to create a campaign to promote a benefit concert for Virgin Unite’s joint RE*Generation program. For Ad Week’s inaugural Youth Day, the students spent the morning being mentored at 15 Toronto agencies, and working on their new advertising/viral campaign submission in teams. The winner was ultimately chosen by Sir Richard Branson, who was in town speaking at an Ad Week luncheon.
Due North Communications mentored the winning team whose campaign tagline was ‘Your ticket in is their ticket out’: David Stein, Sarah Young, Seingmin Lee, Jelena Milacic, Vijay Setler, Tripti Ninan, Hanna Trumper, Laura Yeo and Alison Ing.
The students developed advertising for outdoor posters, newspaper and magazine ads, and radio scripts for 30 and 60 second formats and a 30-second TV PSA. Astral Media is contributing $100,000 in media space on its out-of-home and radio advertising platforms to the winning campaign.
‘The winning team selected by Sir Richard Branson will now have the opportunity to see their creative campaign developed and launched nationally in 2009, thanks to a generous donation from Astral Media,’ said Gillian Graham, CEO of the Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA), a key organizer of Ad Week.
The students also attended a Cannes Lions reel screening hosted by stimulant and the Globe and Mail, and received more career advice from a panel of senior agency execs, moderated by JWT ECD Martin Shewchuk.
