Category: News

The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) and its European Institute for Commercial Communications Education (edcom) have launched a call for entries for its eleventh annual advertising student competition, Ad Venture, in collaboration with Let Toys Be Toys.

Students in the field of commercial communications are challenged to create a campaign that will make the target audience aware, understand and care about why gender stereotyped marketing to children matters.

This year’s client, Let Toys Be Toys, is a grassroots campaign that started on social media in late 2012. Set up by concerned parents, the campaign started with a simple ask of the toy and publishing industries: stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.

The objective of the campaign is  to move towards a situation where offering boys and girls a free choice of playthings and interest is a social norm, by motivating parents to challenge gender stereotyped marketing aimed at children.The final goal is to make parents understand that offering the widest range of play experiences to all children irrespective of their gender ensures the best chance for boys and girls’ learning opportunities and equalities in life.

The submitted entries will be assessed in three rounds by a broad base of judges, comprised of academics, advertising professionals and client representatives from across Europe. The three finalist teams will have the opportunity to present their campaign during the edcom Member’s Meeting in May 2019. The winning team will be rewarded with travel, accommodation and a ticket to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June 2019.

On 3rd October (11am CET), the client will present the brief to students and edcom academics in a webinar format which will end with a Q&A session. Please register for the webinar here.

Students can register their teams until 14 December 2018 and should submit their campaigns by 15 March 2019. Please visit our website for more information.

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For further information, please contact:
Alexandra Nicu, Education & Training Assistant
Telephone: +32 2 740 07 16
Email: alexandra.nicu@eaca.eu

Note for editors
About Ad Venture
Ad Venture is the first Pan-European competition which gives students the opportunity to experience what it is like to work in advertising by creating their own campaign in response to a brief from a real client. The student agencies work on an advertising campaign from October to March by incorporating everything they’ve learned in class and putting their skills to test. Click here for more information.

About EACA
EACA – the European Association of Communications Agencies – The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) represents more than 2500 communications agencies and agency associations from 30 European countries that directly employ more than 120 000 people. EACA members include advertising, media, digital, branding and PR agencies.  They create and place adverts and develop brand-building campaigns. Click here for more information.

About edcom
edcom – the European Institute for Commercial Communications Education – was launched by EACA to promote excellence in commercial communications education and research and to encourage exchanges between the European commercial communications sector and academic partners. Click here for more information.

Toys Be Toys

Let Toys Be Toys is a grassroots campaign that started on social media in late 2012. Set up by concerned parents who had met on the UK site ‘Mumsnet’, the campaign started with a simple ask of the toy and publishing industries: stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys and books as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.

The winning team of the Ad Venture Student Competition was rewarded with a trip and tickets to Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. After this experience, the amazing team composed by Sabrina Neveu, Fanny Marello, Ksenia Skorik and Raphaël Mochi, was kind to share few words and impressions with us. Please find below their testimonial:

“This year we’ve been lucky enough to represent our school ESP in major european competition Ad Venture by EACA inspire! We have received a brief issued by Amnesty International. The challenge was to inspire people around the world and to urge governments to take their fair share of responsibility in the refugee crisis by making it a relevant issue in day-to-day life. We felt a need to make a statement, because of a current situation in Europe and US. It is a complex political subject that pushed us to reflect on it rationally but we tried our best to do it with an open heart, dignity and respect.

Participating in the Ad Venture allowed us to compete with almost 100 teams from the best european advertising schools all around the world. This opportunity gave us a chance to improve our skills and to prove ourselves that we were capable to make a difference.

Thanks to our win, we attended Cannes Lions, International Festival of Creativity, and met professionals from different countries and even continents. We participated in varied talks and workshops conducted by the world famous brands. Through this experience we developed our vision of challenges these brands confront everyday. One of the most discussed subject was AI and its constant influence on the consumer’s behavior.

After this beautiful experience, some of the members of our team have seen a possibility to continue to work in this field. The main idea is still to create a content, not only to sell the product, but to speak up about important social issues and to share sincere emotions and empathy.

The Ad Venture is all about meeting people: students, refugees, professionals. This competition allowed us to build connections and open ourselves to the world.
It was an amazing opportunity that helped us to develop not only our professional skills, but to have some personal enlightenments during the whole process.”

Team LINK

During the week of 2nd July 2018,  over 50 advertising and commercial communications students and young professionals from 17 countries took part in the 9th edition of the EACA International Advertising Summer School at the University of FH Wien, in Vienna, Austria.

The attendees represented a mix of students in the field of commercial communications and young professionals working in media, creative and digital agencies. They were challenged to create a campaign in international, multidisciplinary teams for this year’s client Alfa Romeo, the Italian car manufacturer. During the week, they also received workshops from leading advertising practitioners in mixed groups to gain an understanding of the advertising industry.

The client was looking for a campaign aiming to conquer a new market segment, 25-30 year old adults. Keeping in mind that, “Alfa Romeo is never just a machine. It is an extension of your soul”, the company wishes to have a new and fresh communication strategy to address a younger audience.

This year, the participants were divided into a Foundation and an Advanced group. The Foundation group was composed by 4 teams of students, whereas the Advanced group included 6 teams of 6 young professionals each.

The groups worked on their pitches during the whole week, whilst attending workshops from industry experts.  At the end of the week, the 10 teams presented their ideas and campaigns to their peers and the jury, which consisted of Micky Denehy (EACA), Louisa Böhringer (Österreichischer Werberat), Istvan Simon (Mama said no), Rössler Elisabeth (Alfa Romeo).

The winning Foundation team ‘Alfa 4’ convinced the jury with their campaign #getthevrrroom. The team decided to build their campaign around the fact that the Alfa Romeo brand gives customers the feeling of driving a sports car. With the hashtag #getthevrrroom, the campaign encouraged customers to hurry up and buy their own Alfa Romeo before they will have to face the silent future. When interviewed about their experience, the team commented that: “We feel very happy and we appreciate this week and the opportunity to work together. Also, we are delighted to have won our first trophy!”

The winning Advanced team ‘FHORCE’ had an impressive campaign called “Conquer the next generation of Alfisti”. With their main message “Never to young to..!” and their ingenious idea of giving people the option to “date their cars” on Tinder. The winning team commented: “It feels great to win! We worked very hard for it and we succeeded to impress the jury.”

All teams overwhelmed the judging panel with their creative ideas, their vitality when delivering the pitches and their passion for the advertising industry in general.

The next EACA International Summer School will take place at the beginning of July 2019.

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For further information, please contact:

Pauline De Pelsmacker
Education and Training Manager
EACA
+32 2 740 07 18
pauline.depelsmacker@eaca.eu

European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA), brings together the advertising, media and sales promotions agencies across Europe, enabling international experience and issues to be shared and dealt with on a pan-European basis. It provides an important link between agencies, advertisers and the advertising media in Europe and around the world and participates closely in the setting of standards in many aspects of the business across Europe.