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UK students win European AdVenture competition

7 June 2012 -

Brussels, 7 June 2012: A pan-European public awareness campaign about Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) by four British students has won the 5th AdVenture student competition organised by EACA through its European Institute for Commercial Communications Education, edcom.

The "Brutha" team from Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, represented by Sean Bone, Ben Gardiner, Rosa Greenslade and Paul Martin beat 68 other teams from 12 countries to win first place, answering a brief supported by DG Information Society from the European Commission both as the convenor of EU-level multi-stakeholder debate on OBA and other online issues and as the lead for European digital innovation and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe), acting with a range of industry stakeholders, representing advertisers, media & agencies. The winning team will attend the student programme of the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival in June in recognition of their success.

The objective of the winning campaign "Despicable me" is to raise awareness of how OBA operates and foster the perception that online behavioural targeting is a beneficial service top consumers and not to be feared.

Three finalist teams were selected during two initial judging rounds and invited to present their campaigns to the third round jury and delegates during the edcom annual conference on the 25h of May at Bucks New University in High Wycombe, UK. The two runners-up were the "FOUR+ONE" team from Hogeschool Leuven, Belgium and the "Me gusta" team from Bucharest University, Romania.

The final jury chaired by Jon Chase, CEO Velvet Rock Communications, comprised Chris Beaumont, Group Account Director, Universal McCann; Alain Heureux, President & CEO, IAB Europe, Belgium; Hugh Kellet, Founder and Director Cambridge Comms; Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers' Council & Chair of the OBA Steering Group, Belgium; Barbara Posch, Director, Werbe Akademie Vienna, Austria and Paul Springer, Head of Research and Special Projects at Buckinghamshire New University.

The Ad Venture competition jury was very impressed by the high quality of the student campaigns. "This year we had a very complex subject-Online Behavioural Advertising – which is an important subject for many different stakeholders all around Europe", said jury chair Jon Chase. "It was a much tougher challenge for universities and their students to think of how to approach such a complex brief. With that in mind, we still had a fantastic number of high quality entries. We had three amazing finalist campaigns. The winning team from Bournemouth University had an amazing BIG IDEA and they really demonstrated how well they understood the brief and the key insight".

After being announced as winner of the 2012 competition, the Brutha team proudly stated "Originally, we were briefed by the university about the competition. Ever since, we've been dreaming of this, but could not believe it would actually happen.

"The prize is amazing. First, to receive feedback from professionals is an incredible opportunity for a student; it's what we work really hard for. Going to Cannes Lions is also an amazing prize and is the best thing we could hope for at 21 years old. Finally, the chance for the campaign to go live is as big an opportunity as going to Cannes. It's what everyone aspires to; it's the reason why we study advertising in the first place!"

Ad Venture winner 2012: "Nothing Despicable About Me":
Benjamin Gardiner, Sean Bone

It is the first time Bournemouth University has won the AdVenture Student Competition since its launch in 2007. Dr Richard Scullion, Senior Lecturer at Media School concluded “it has been a great contribution over the last four years to our degree course to be involved in this competition. The success of our team Brutha this year is testimony to their commitment, enthusiasm and creativity and as tutors it helps validate our efforts".

Please read more about the finalists and the competition here.

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For further information, please contact:

Dominic Lyle
Director-General EACA
Tel: + 32 2 740 0711
E-mail: dominic.lyle@eaca.be

Tamara Ramach
EU Affairs Manager
Tel+ 32 2 740 0715
Tamara.Ramach@eaca.be

edcom, The European Institute for Commercial Communications Education was founded to promote excellence in commercial communications education and research, enhance communication and co-operation between the European commercial communication sector and academic partners, to facilitate cross-border education, employment and exchange of commercial communications students and to promote knowledge and understanding of innovative advertising and communication techniques and new use of media and other public platforms.

EACA, the European Association of Communications Agencies 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.

The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) is a Brussels-based organisation whose mission is to represent full-service advertising and media agencies and agency associations in Europe. EACA aims to promote honest, effective advertising, high professional standards, and awareness of the contribution of advertising in a free market economy and to encourage close co-operation between agencies, advertisers and media in European advertising bodies.