Silver for 303Lowe Perth’s Bolderoff and Riddler in Young Lions Cyber competition

303Lowe’s Liam Riddler (far left) and Alex Bolderoff (near left) have won the Silver medal at the International Young Lions Cyber competition in Cannes.

The win is Australia’s first ever in the Cyber category, and the second Young Lions award this year, meaning 2013 is already the most successful year for Aussies in the Young Lions competition, with two categories still to come.

Bolderoff and Riddler were given 24 hours to respond to a brief for the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). The challenge was to create an online/digital ad concept that encourages young athletes (under 19) to stick to the values of fair play and avoid doping and cheating. The message had to create awareness about the importance of clean sport and good decision making skills.

The pair decided quickly that Facebook was the most effective platform for engaging with younger audience. They created a trick post for WADA around the topic so when users clicked on the post, an online concept banner would then start deleting online history – highlighting how drugs can delete your sporting history.

“We didn’t want to stress about it and ruin the experience of being here in Cannes,” said Riddler, “so once we’d been briefed we got out of the room and found a cabana on the beach which was quiet and beautiful. We wanted somewhere to inspire us. We decided quickly on what we thought was a simple, but highly effective way, of reaching that younger audience.”

Bolderoff said they used the learnings from a workshop they’d attended earlier in the day, The Logic Behind the Magic, and applied it to their creative process to land on their idea.

“We had used similar techniques before but the information from the workshop really helped us fine tune it.”

The Young Lions Cyber Competition was judged by the Cyber Lions Jury, led by BobGreenberg, Founder, Chairman and CEO of R/GA. After waiting two hours for the result yesterday morning, the winning duo said the experience had been fantastic.

“The opportunity to get your work in front of those international judges is so cool,” said Riddler. “It has been an amazing experience.”

Paul Den and Kristine Ballensky, both from UM, were awarded silver in the Media Young Lions category earlier in the week.

News Limited is the official Australian representative of the Cannes International Festival of Creativity and congratulates Liam and Alex.