Rebecca Ann Menezes and Eduardo Cesar from Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East win gold at the UAE Young Lions Digital Competition 2022.
The 19th edition of the esteemed UAE Young Lions Digital Competition, hosted by Motivate Media Group and Motivate Val Morgan – the official UAE representatives of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, took place on Saturday, 26th March 2022.
This year’s competition took place online and witnessed participation from 18 teams across 10 creative agencies. The judging and awards ceremony followed on Wednesday, 30th March 2022, with Rebecca Ann Menezes and Eduardo Cesar from Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East winning Gold.
Rebecca and Eduardo will move on to represent the UAE at the International Young Lions Digital Competition, which will take place online between 25th – 27th May 2022. The gold winning duo will also receive a full week delegate pass and an all-expense paid trip to attend the in-person Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June 2022.
Ana Julia De Oliveira and Jarrad Pitts from Impact BBDO bagged Silver, while Mayar Essawy and Francesco Negri from FP7 McCann won Bronze.
The jury panel for this year’s competition comprised of Louise Kotze Hussein (BPG Group), Giorgia Fattoracci (Leo Burnett), Bruno Barbosa (Saatchi & Saatchi), Yasmina Boustani (Impact BBDO), Rafael Augusto (Publicis Middle East), Andre Marchesi (Science & Sunshine), Claudia Canas (FP7 McCann), Muhammad Ali (Momentum MENA), Vivek Kukreti (Precise Communications) and Vijay Simon (You Experience).
This year’s client brief was from Goumbook, the leading social enterprise promoting sustainable living and green practices in the UAE and beyond since 2010, and the competition was sponsored by Getty Images.
Participating teams were challenged to develop a creative and innovative digital led campaign for Goumbook’s latest initiative ‘Save the Butts – Waste to Value’ – the first sustainability initiative in the UAE that adopts a circular Economy approach to environmental pollution, that converts cigarette butts into a value-added material. The campaign goal was to raise awareness on the littering of cigarette butts and its negative impact on the environment, with a focus on promoting the initiative to corporates/companies and encouraging them to get involved.
Speaking at the online awards ceremony, Tatiana Antonelli, Founder of Goumbook, stated: ”Trillions of cigarettes are smoked annually, making cigarette butts the most common type of litter in the world. Due to the composition of butts being mainly plastic and toxic substances, this waste carries a very harmful risk for the environment and for living organisms, including humans. The ‘Save The Butts’ campaign aims to raise awareness and showcase alternative solutions to landfilling and incineration. We have identified technology to properly recycle this kind of waste and promote the recovery of materials in line with a circular economy approach and sustainable development. We welcome the local community, including individuals and businesses, to join the initiative, collect cigarette butts and help transform waste into value.”
Ian Fairservice – Managing Partner, Motivate Media Group, said: “After a stellar performance from the standout up-and-comers of the industry, it was particularly difficult to narrow down the top submissions. In the end there had to be a winning team – I want to congratulate everyone who participated, but especially the winners Rebecca and Eduardo from Saatchi & Saatchi ME, who I’m sure will be great ambassadors from the UAE during this year’s Cannes Lions event.”
The UAE Young Lions Digital Competition – hosted by Motivate Media Group and Motivate Val Morgan, supported by Getty Images, aims to unveil the brightest creative minds from across the UAE, and is part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications. 2022 will witness the return of the annual festival and will take place between 20th – 24th June at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France.
The 17th edition of the prestigious UAE Young Lions Digital Competition, hosted by Motivate Media Group and Motivate Val Morgan – the official UAE representative of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in association with Dubai Media City took place on Saturday 20th April 2019 at the offices of Motivate Media in Dubai Media City. The Judging and Awards Ceremony followed on Monday 22nd April 2019 at the In5 Media Innovation Centre in Dubai Production City, with Arwa Al Jundi (Art Director) and Warsha J. Dhemani (Copywriter) from Livingroom Communication named the Gold winners of the competition.
The wining duo was selected from a pool of 16 participating teams, and will be flown on an all-expense paid trip to Cannes to represent the UAE at the International Young Lions Digital Competition, which will be held in June 2019.
Not too far behind them were Sumer Kotwal (Art Director) and Gaurav Maitreya (Copywriter) from Publicis Sapient (Gold winners of last year’s UAE Young Lions Digital Competition) who bagged Silver.
With so many creative ideas and inspiring submissions, determining the Bronze winner was a challenge, and this year, the UAE Young Lions Digital Competition saw a tie between three teams – Felipe Menezes (Art Director) and Sabine Haddad (Copywriter) from TBWA\RAAD, Alan Hong (Art Director) and Poroma Pant (Copywriter) from Saatchi & Saatchi Dubai, and Nour Mohammad (Art Director) and Peter Mazloumian (Copywriter) from Socialize.
Other participating agencies at this year’s competition included:
Leo Burnett Dubai, APCO Worldwide, Mullenlowe MENA, Publicis Middle East, RAPP Middle East, Wavemaker, Amber Communications, Rain Creative, and McCann Health Dubai.
The ‘Creative Club’ who judged this year’s competition comprised:
Manuel Bordé – TBWA\RAAD
Prajakta More – McCann Health Dubai
Ali Shabaz – RAPP Middle East
Georgine Hajjar – Wavemaker
Mohamed Bareche – Publicis Middle East
Seyoan Vela – Livingroom Communication
Samer Zouehid – Saatchi & Saatchi Dubai
Anton Marais – Leo Burnett
Prasad Pradhan – Amber Communications
Pascale Youssef – APCO Worldwide
Alfonso Arbos – Mullenlowe MENA
Shwan Nazar – Publicis Sapient
Shamrock Nevis – Rain Creative
Rafael Bergamini – Socialize Agency
Shyam Vipin – Praxis Advertising
This year’s client was World Food Programme (WFP) – the food- assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger, and the competition was sponsored by Getty Images and Xerox Middle East.
Ian Fairservice – Managing Partner, Motivate Media Group, said “After 17 years of hosting the Young Lions competition, we have seen some inspiring work from these exceptional young professionals. This year is certainly not different and I’d like to wish Arwa and Warsha from Livingroom Communication the best of luck representing the region in Cannes. I’m sure they will be great ambassadors for the UAE.”
Majed Al Suwaidi – Managing Director of Dubai Media City, said: “Dubai Media City is proud to collaborate once again with the UAE Young Lions and Motivate to encourage the rise of digital platforms and the region’s creativity. As our mandate to support the growing upcoming talent, the UAE Young Lions and Motivate competition provides the opportunity for our people to gain recognition and grow their careers. Our partnership, with the collaboration of our incubator in5 media, looks forward to a successful outcome and we wish all the participants great learnings every success.”
Congratulations to the winners and a job well done to all 16 teams that participated in this year’s competition.
The UAE Young Lions Digital Competition – hosted by Motivate Media Group and Motivate Val Morgan, in association with Dubai Media City and supported by Getty Images and Xerox Middle East, aims to unveil the brightest creative minds from across the UAE, and is part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications. The International Festival will take place from the 17th to the 21st of June 2019 in the city of Cannes, located on France’s mesmerizing south coast and will offer five days of award ceremonies, seminars, workshops, master classes, exhibitions, screenings and networking.
