Two students from the Media Design School have taken out the top prize at the annual News Media student advertising competition.
‘Fight Climate Change with Change’, by Izzy Curran and Malik Benbrahim, hit the nail on the head according to the judges, and won the main brief category, taking home the cash prize.
The brief for this year was to create a brand campaign for Drive Electric, who have the goal to make electric vehicle ownership in New Zealand mainstream, with students creating work that showcased the advantages of electric vehicles and the associated benefits that support New Zealand’s action against climate change.
The brief called for innovation and integration across both print and digital news media platforms and attracted entries from Auckland University of Technology, Media Design School and the University of Otago’s Brandbach.
Diane Hannay, head of marketing for News Works, says it’s great to see so many students engaging with news media, with the competition attracting over 90 entries across two categories.
“With social media grabbing so much of this generation’s attention, we have an important role to play to ensure they understand that not everybody has the same media consumption habits as they do,” says Hannay.
Curran and Benbrahim’s campaign was highly praised by the creative judging panel of 12, who said it was a unanimous choice for first place.
“The insight, that it’s time to start using all the extra weather that climate change is causing to power electric cars really resonated with us – particularly given the extreme weather the world’s been experiencing this year”.
‘Drive Carbon Free’ by Brosnan Ackerman and Trudi Axtens from AUT received a special mention and was the runner-up campaign.
The top prize awarded in the 48-hour topical category was taken out this year by Ritwik Varma from AUT for his “Covfefe” execution.
The judges said it was “highly topical and quite cleverly executed.”
