Australia finishes in top four at Adfest’s Young Lotus competition – Pakistan takes top prize

Australia’s representatives at the Young Lotus competition, Nic Buckingham, art directorand Arwa Mahdawi, planner from The Campaign Palace, Sydney (pictured) – who were sponsored by FBI Recruitment – finished in thefinal four.

However, the New Zealand team Kia Heinnen, art director and Zoë Hawkins, copywriter from Colenso BBDO as the reps for NZ, didn’t make the cut in the competition, which was won byMaheen Meenai and Umair Anwar from Karachi.

The People’s Choice was won by Chan Hock Liang and Bee Nee Ng, from Kuala Lumpur. Hesky Lu and Ricky Chen from Shanghai also finished in the top four.

The Young Lotus teams were given a challenge for Pepsi, one of TWBA’s mostimportant clients: concept, plan and shoot a 2-minute long film that wouldpersuade people to ‘Choose Pepsi’ – to be completed within 24-hours.

The Young Lotus Workshop was hosted by TBWA\Asia Pacific and attended by 36 young creatives – the highest number of participants ever to take part in the Young LotusWorkshop since it launched eight years ago.

This year’s Chief Mentor is John Merrifield, Creative-at-Large at TBWA\Asia Pacific,who – together with some of TBWA’s most experienced executives in the region -gave a series of lectures based on the theme: “Get Inspired by the World AroundYou”.

“As clichéd as this sounds, I was seriously blown away by the quality of work thesecreatives demonstrated in just 24 hours with such limited time and budget. Theypossess sharp thinking and stellar crafting skills, and I have no doubt theseyoung creatives will go places. The talent that they’ve demonstrated actuallymakes me glad that I’m not starting out now – I’d probably have a tough timecompeting,” says Merrifield.