Gemba’s first visit to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity ended on a high with a win in the  Masters of Creativity award .

Executive Creative Director Boyd Hicklin represented the agency as part of the five-day training program that takes place at the Cannes Lions School within the Festival. The competition consisted of multidisciplinary teams gathered from all across the world, working with industry mentors around a live brief given by a global advertiser.

There were eight mentors leading the third edition of the Masters of Creativity program: Alan Schulman of Deloitte Digital, Eleonore Ogrinz of Red Bull, Gudeep Puri of The Effectiveness Partnership, Matt Williams The Martin Agency, Nick Brien of Hearst Marketing Services, Rob Reilly of McCann Worldgroup, Sarah Watson of BBH Global, Scott Galloway of NYU Stern School of Business.

Keith Reinhard, Creative Director of DDB Worldwide, chaired the program.

The challenge this year was to convince adult EU consumers of that ‘Oreo cookies are not just for kids’

Besides Boyd Hicklin, the winning team brought together creative and marketing talent from Austria, Serbia and Canada.

The winning idea of was based around a timeless universal insight – sometimes you need a little sweetener to get things done – and manifested itself in the original and very felxible idea ‘Do something good and we’ll give you a cookie.’

An intensive week of training, development and creative concepting led to a live presentation to a panel of elite mentors as well as the Oreo client in Europe.

The Masters of Creativity Award trophies were presented on stage at the famous Lumiere Theatre within the Palais on the final night of competition at Cannes Lions.

Boyd attended the festival as part of Gemba’s Dojo program, where staff are supported to develop their skills and experience and fast-track professional development.