BMF team Dunn and Carbone take out Adshel Creative Challenge in support of headspace

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adshel.jpgOn Thursday night, a buzzing media crowd in a completely packed foyer of the Blue Hotel in Woolloomooloo saw Eleanor Dunn and Mark Carbone from BMF take out Adshel’s Creative Challenge in support of headspace, an organisation that supports youth suffering from mental illness and depression.

Ambassador for head space Ruby Rose (centre) presented the award.

Pictuwinner and judgesre 1.jpgThey competed against 23 other teams to take home the $200,000 campaign prize that will see their idea come to life on Adshel panels across the country. They also won a trip for two to the New York Festival’s International Advertising Awards in May 2012.

Over 100 creative minds were challenged to come up with an integrated outdoor campaign for headspace.

Wendy McCarthy, chairperson of headspace, gave a thorough explanation of the charity’s vision and after a few hints, tips and rules from Peter Charlton, Adshel’s sales director, the countdown began and the teams had just one hour to come up with an inspiring creative idea.

As well as capturing the spirit of headspace, the event was also about capturing the spirit of

advertising: coming up with great creative ideas for an outdoor campaign while working under pressure. Despite the short time, many teams came up with clever ways to use the outdoor medium, with some adding wraps, LED, sound and special builds to their campaign ideas.

Angus Hennah, creative director at JWT and chairman of the jury, comments: “It’s inspiring to see the industry get behind a charity like headspace, and show so much enthusiasm for a great cause, and a great competition. There was a lot of good work on the night, but the winning team stood out because their idea was a clean, powerful, creative solution. The idea met the brief and was perfectly targeted to the audience to make them think about their own issues, and to act preemptively rather than let the small problems become big ones”.

In the end, it was a pretty tough call between the top three: PHD, The Works and BMF, but the judges (pictured with the winners) eventually decided that BMF’s concept not only met the brief seamlessly, but followed all of the outdoor advertising creative guidelines re. innovation, smart use of Adshel as an outdoor medium, clear single minded messaging and visual engagement.

BMF will now work together with Adshel and headspace to refine the campaign and show off their work early next year on 260 Adshel street furniture panels around Sydney.

The winning team best summed up what the night was all about: “It was important to convey the message that prevention is better than cure. Identifying a mental health issue before it snowballs out of control can make all the difference to someone’s life. We wanted to take our campaign beyond the poster and really take advantage of the medium. We’re also really excited to be helping an incredible organisation like Headspace. It’s such an important service for young Aussies so we’re looking forward to helping spread their message. And the hug from Ruby was definitely a bonus”.

Adshel’s next Creative Challenge will happen in Perth at the end of the year.