Representing Sri Lanka at the Spikes Asia Festival, Mindshare team members Seninda Bandara and Supun Hettiarachchi did the country proud when they clinched the Bronze medal for ‘Young Spikes in Media’ recently.

The win at the regional Young Spikes competition was a significant victory for their company, with the GroupM agency Mindshare emerging as the only winner from Sri Lanka, outshining more complex markets such as Japan, India, Korea and Singapore.

The Spikes Asia Festival was held in Singapore, where Seninda and Supun competed amongst agencies in the APAC region. The winning campaign by Seninda and Supun addressed methods of improving tourism opportunities for Singapore, with the objectives of enhancing visits and driving advocacy. The duo was given three days to work on the project and five minutes to present.

Having identified the need gap for destination information as well as directions and travel options – with ‘map’ and ‘things to do’ being critical searches during pre- and post-arrival – they created a map to fill this gap and achieve the campaign objectives.  Having gathered information and insight, they proposed a campaign of a mobile app based on a map, titled the ‘Orchid Map’. This tied-in seamlessly with Singapore tourism, with the Orchid being the country’s national flower.

The Orchid Map symbolised the diversity of the country in four areas – entertainment, attractions, dining and shopping – and comprised a simple, real-time, integrated and interactive multi-platform to explore everything in Singapore.

Commenting on his experience, Supun said: “Spikes Asia was an amazing experience not only because of our victory, but also the exposure I received from many industry experts as well as the great work done by so many agencies regionally. The Young Spikes competition is a great opportunity for young professionals in the industry to enhance their skills to a highly competitive level. I am grateful to the Mindshare & GroupM family for giving me the opportunity to make the country so proud.”

Seninda, also expressing his gratitude to GroupM commented: “Winning at Young Spikes was a great experience for me and absolutely a milestone in my advertising career. The Spikes Asia Festival of creativity was an amazing festival with opportunities for knowledge sharing, networking, fun. I am proud to have represented our country at a global event of this scale and I am thankful to the Mindshare & GroupM family for the opportunity and encouragement.”

The Young Spikes Media Competition, which took place from 23 to 26 September comprised the presentation of the brief, the two-day competition period, the deadline and the judging process and saw the brightest young minds of the region competing for top honours.

The Young Spikes Competitions provide Asia Pacific’s next generation of creative talent the opportunity to showcase their talent. Mindshare’s Associate Director – Invention, Seninda and Executive, Supun were selected to represent Sri Lanka at the Spikes Asia Festival after they excelled at the competition held among the local advertising industry.

The challenging competition here saw teams of creative minds develop an innovative and viable media strategy for a charity or non-profit organization in just two days. The competition, which is a platform for young talent to showcase business insight and skills, was judged by a panel of top media experts.

Spikes Asia, a collaboration between Lions Festivals and Haymarket, provide the region’s creative communications industry a platform to network and exchange ideas, bringing together the finest creative thinkers from around the world.

Mindshare is the flagship unit of GroupM Sri Lanka, which also holds Maxus, Mediacom and MEC. GroupM is the largest consolidated media investment management company in the country.