Auckland students most awarded in international competition

Out of thousands of ideas entered in the non-professional category from across the world at this year’s AD STARS, the judges handed out just 48 awards in total. Media Design School’s advertising students took out four of only 10 awards in the Innovation category, making it the most awarded school in its category.

AD STARS’ Innovation category celebrates the most ground-breaking and experimental works from soon-to-be advertisers.

More than 20,000 entries from 74 counties around the world were received in the prestigious international advertising awards program this year, with 1,719 works selected as finalists (within their respective categories).

“We’re delighted to not only dominate the Innovation category, but also to score a win in print, a category that a lot of today’s students find incredibly challenging,” said Media Design School’s programme leader, Kate Humphries.

“Some well-deserved congratulations must go to our print winners, Zach Hall and Clementina de Ruiter for Poachers or Doctors – a campaign based on a nifty insight about how closely the work of Gorilla Doctors resembles that of poachers.”

“Our innovation winners, in only the second month of the course this year, explored ways in which big brands could create branded products or services that helped deal with important problems,” explained Ms Humphries.

“For such early work to stand up to the challenge of other courses in their final projects is testimony to some very hard work on the part of our students.”

The Media Design School students who took out awards in the AD STARS Innovation category at the weekend were:

• George Stafford and Tyson Keane for Occulus Teleoperated Mine Detonator, in which gamers explode landmines that would take 1,000 years to clear using existing methods;
• Hannah Stokes and Will Budget for Endit, a nail polish range from Body Shop https://vimeo.com/266049050 that incorporates a dot lab saliva test to diagnose a crippling condition which currently takes an average of 7-10 years to diagnose;
• Phillip Meki and David Amann for Huawei Trains, an idea that uses Nano technology on the top of trains to collect and re-distribute energy; and
• Guy Tengrove and Emi Liu for Ali Baba’s 100% Counterfeit Range: https://vimeo.com/266050874 which used the counterfeit accusations levelled at the world’s biggest online retailer to kickstart an idea for a proudly 100% Counterfeit range of plastic - ‘proudly’ because it’s made from bamboo composite, not plastic.

In the lead up to the awards announcements, Media Design School students took out eight of the 17 finalist spots in the Innovation category, ranking them as the most-nominated school worldwide this year – well ahead of both the New York School of Visual Arts and Miami AdSchool.

AD STARS is Korea’s only international advertising awards program that shares creative solutions through its creativity and technology convergence festival. AD STARS says its ultimate value is ‘humanity’, with a commitment to sharing creative solutions that contribute to the wellbeing of mankind.

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