Next Generation Rises as Ad Stars Reveals New Stars and Young Stars Winners

AD STARS has announced the winners of this year’s New Stars AD Competition for junior advertising professionals who have less than three years’ experience or are aged under 30. Congratulations to Zach Lim & Villarica Manuel from Wunderman Thompson Philippines, who won Gold for their ‘BusanWave’ campaign.

                                                 

New Stars helps young professionals to further their career by competing with 33 teams from around the world. This year, the teams had just 24-hours to respond to the following brief: to come up with a ground breaking social media promotional plan to attract more international tourists to Busan – and boost the image of the city as a global tourism destination.

 

“The teams had a day to write a reverse brief and create a presentation board or video that sold their idea. Overall, given the quick turnaround time, the results were seriously impressive. There was some excellent research, thinking and craft demonstrated – some bold stand-out ideas and a few concepts that Busan tourism should really consider running,” says Kim Pick, Executive Creative Director at VMLY&R New Zealand, who led the New Stars jury panel.

 

“‘Busan Wave’ stood out as a big platform idea that recognised the Korean Wave craze, and created a new sub-genre of Busan Wave – a more laid-back, beachy version of Korean Wave that could apply to music, drama, art and more. It didn’t just give a feeling for what the Busan experience would be like – it actually helped set a vision for tourism in the city,” Pick explains.

 

There were two Silver-winning teams: Haehyun Lee and Uyeon Jeong from Daehong Communications, South Korea; and Noriaki Tanimura and Mai Kaneda from McCann Health Japan.

 

Pick says the jury had a tough decision awarding the top metal as there were a number of great contenders: “The Silver-winning team from Japan produced a stand-out piece of crazy left field thinking that had the judges laughing out loud. It focused on making an unlikely hero of the Busan slime eel – and recruiting a team of slime fanatics from around the world to descend on the city to study it (and enjoy it as a delicacy). It was bold and mad enough to actually be highly social and successful.

 

“The Silver-winning Korean team had an idea that could be packaged up and sold tomorrow – it was an end-to-end roll out for an app Meoggo (a clever play on words meaning both ‘what is it?’ and ‘eat’) where Busan taxi drivers could recommend all the best places to eat in the city. It was well-thought through and highly finessed.”

 

John Bellarmine Javier and Henry Glo from Nuworks Interactive Labs in the Philippines won Bronze.

 

There were also three Crystal winners from Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia. Congratulations to Larissa Loh and Vickknesh Raj from Leo Burnett Malaysia; Jack Hsu and Easy Tsai fromWunderman Thompson Taipei; and Fiona McLeod and Emily Field from BMF Australia.

 

If you are interested in applying to take part in the 2020 New Stars AD Competition, contacteun05@adstars.org or lydia@adstars.org. For more information, visit adstars.org

As for the student competition, Young Stars Zhang Ruoyu, Sun Hanchen and Ma Shuai from Shanghai Normal University, won Gold.

 

“We loved their idea because firstly, it is tailored specifically for Busan. It’s engaging, sharable and allows the experience of Busan to be enjoyed by others. But the part that really took it to Gold is the level of craft in every facet of the campaign: the thinking behind the name, the typography and right down to the packaging of the case study. Bravo to the team,” says Nkanyezi Masango, Creative Director at King James in South Africa, who helped judge the Young Stars competition.

 

Young Stars gives university students from around the world a taste of what it’s like to work in advertising. This year, their brief was to sell Busan as the ultimate tourist destination using social media – with just 30 hours to create a solution.

 

A team from South Korea won Silver: congratulations to Jihee Woo (Sookmyung Women's University), Yoonjae Hong (Seoul National University of Science and Technology) and Minye Lee (Dankook University).

 

“Their idea is genius because it’s based on a great insight. It solves a problem that most tourists face with a simple yet innovative solution. Overall, the quality of ideas created by all Young Stars teams was impressive considering it had to be produced in 30 hours. There were a handful of entries that really went far beyond my expectations,” says Masango.

 

There were two Bronze winners: Hyunji Ryu from Sookmyung Women's University in South Korea; and Surawit Khwanmuang, Teerawat Kraiarb and Sapsiri Pramsa-nga from Bangkok University.

 

This year’s Crystal winners are: Chun-Hua Chang and Ting-Yu Liu from Fu Jen University in Taiwan; Maksim Zamakhin, Vladislava Kishikova and Ilia Sarapultsev from Wordshop Academy in Russia; and Kirill Pavlyukevich, Elvira Sadykova and Svetlana Kuznetsova from Wordshop  Academy (Belarus and Russia).

 

If you are interested in applying to take part in the 2020 Young Stars AD Competition, contactzannylee@adstars.org. For more information, visit adstars.org