DDB Sydney’s Ryan Fitzgerald and Jim Curtis to represent Australia at the 9th Adfest Young Lotus Competition in Thailand from 17th – 19th March

DDB Sydney’s Ryan Fitzgerald (left) and Jim Curtis (right) have been selected to represent Australia at AdFest’s Young Lotus competition in Pattaya Thailand. The Workshop commences three days prior, which runs from 17th to 19th March.

The duo, both 27 years old, will fly to Pattaya this week to partake in the including a 24hr competition this Friday. The competition will involve going up against the best under 28 creative talent from across the Asia-Pacific region.

Their trip includes meals and accommodation as well as full three-day passes to the AdFest festival after the completion of the workshop.

Says Fitzgerald: “We’re both really excited to go up against the region’s finest. In terms of Pattaya; we’ve told our mums we’ll keep our hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.”

Says Dylan Harrison, DDB Sydney’s executive creative director: “Despite their table tennis prowess and relentlessly trying to convert a Sydney creative department to AFL, Jim and Ryan’s only real hope of representing their country in competition is in advertising. In the creative arena they’re a pair of match fit heavyweight champs. They’ll do DDB Sydney and Australia proud on the international stage, backed by the roar of support from Ultimo.”

Curtis and Fitzgerald have been a team at DDB Sydney for the past two years where they’ve created major campaigns for brands including Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Telstra, Wrigley’s, Arnott’s and Tourism Australia.

Their work has been recognised at Cannes, New York Festivals, AWARD, the Caxtons and the Effies. Curtis has previously represented Australia at the 2010 International Young Lions Competition in Cannes.

Last year they finished in the top three creative teams in the country for both the Film and Print categories at the Australian Cannes Young Lions Competition.