MAM
McCann Worldgroup’s Ben Lilley talks about creativity at Adfest 2016
MUMBAI: ADFEST is pleased to announce that Ben Lilley, Chairman and CEO of McCann Worldgroup Australia, is joining the line-up at ADFEST 2016.
Lilley presides over one of the region’s most awarded agencies, McCann Australia – the agency behind the multi-award winning ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ campaign of 2012. At ADFEST this year, he will present a session titled: ‘Is the Creative Team Dead? Or has it just been hipsterized?’
“Technology has disrupted everything, including now, it seems, the creative team. Or has it? Just as there’s ‘no I in team’, there’s no ‘I’ in technology either. Agency teams remain as vital as ever to developing original, compelling and effective ideas,” says Lilley.
So has the creative team really changed? This session will examine what exactly a successful agency team should look like these days.
Lilley started out as a creative with some of Australia’s most respected agencies, including George Patterson, McCann and DDB, before launching his own agency SMART in 2000.
Described by AdNews as “one of the best known independent advertising success stories in Australia”, SMART was recognised in theAdNews and B&T Agency of the Year, Employer of the Year, Cannes Lions, Effies, Clios, New York Festivals, BRW Fast100 and numerous other global award shows.
In 2011, SMART was acquired by McCann Worldgroup and Lilley was appointed Australian Chairman and CEO. Within two years, McCann made Australian history as the world’s most awarded agency in the The Gunn Report, Won Report and AdAge Awards Report.
The agency’s campaigns include “Dumb Ways to Die” for Metro Trains, which in 2013 was named the most awarded campaign in Cannes Lions history and one of AdAge’s Top 15 Ad Campaigns of The 21st Century.
In 2014, the agency was awarded its 6th Cannes Grand Prix for V/Line “Guilt Trips”. And in 2015 McCann was Australia’s top ranked agency (and 6th in the world) in the global Warc 100 creative effectiveness rankings.
‘Is the Creative Team Dead? Or has it just been hipsterized?’ takes place on Friday 18th March at 4pm.
Delegate Passes to ADFEST 2016 – which runs from 16th to 19th March at the Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand – are now available via www.ADFEST.com
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
