The Australian newspaper and OpenAd.net joined forces to find the toughest Australian brief for creatives to respond to, and then asked the creatives to respond.
The first phase - The winning brief was chosen for its originality, the scale of the issue the brief was seeking to change and the positive change it has the potential to exert on Australian life.
The winner of the brief writing component of the Australia's Toughest Brief competition was Daniel Stockdale, 28, from Melbourne. Daniel is an advertising sales executive for The Stenmark Organisation.
Asked what prompted him to write his winning brief:
Convince Australians that the most important and worthwhile career is to become a politician with the goal of attracting the best possible candidates for Parliament.
He said it was the first thing that came to mind. His father is in politics and he has a general interest in Australian and global politics. It was also timely, with the impending national election. Daniel will embark on his own political career in the near future, he believes that the country is missing out on enticing the best people to a political career because the dollars in the private sector are more attractive than those offered by the public sector. Daniel emphasises that "the importance of attracting educated, socially aware, charismatic people to leadership roles in politics cannot be underestimated".
The second phase – the creative response was won by Australian Rachelle Boyle, 26, a librarian and an external student in her final semester of a Certificate in Media Communications, at Griffith University caught the attention of Australia's Toughest Briefs judges Tom Moult, executive chairman of multinational advertising agency Euro RSCG and Warren Brown, executive creative director of leading independent agency BMF. Rachelle won all three categories of Australia's Toughest Brief competition answering the brief - To convince Australians that the most important and worthwhile career is to become a politician with the goal of attracting the best possible candidates for Parliament with her 'Some People Grumble, Others Rumble - Make A Real Difference. Begin a Political Career Today' creative campaign.
When asked where Rachelle found her creative inspiration, she said the idea was just waiting to jump out, 'I had been inspired by an avid unionist work colleague who is a real warrior. My colleague made me realise that there are not many people willing to stand up and fight for people's rights. I tried to create an advertisement that everyone would relate to - something that would make anyone feel empowered enough to stand up for the issues they believe are important. A career in Politics does seem like it's something other people do, so it was a challenge to make the idea attractive to the general public, to get them to consider politics as a legitimate and achievable career option.'
Rachelle designed her creative to work as a print and outdoor poster campaign; to be highly visible at bus stops and on train stations. One of the four options she proposed is shown below.
Rachelle believes that winning "Australia's Toughest Brief" means that any future briefs that come her way should be easy, but adds, 'to be honest, I think every brief is a challenge because we all have to keep thinking of something original'.
Rachelle found Openad when she was Googling 'advertising', she is now a member along with nearly 10,000 other creative minds from around the globe, she is looking forward to the challenge of creating future campaigns for briefs being placed on OpenAd.
© Dana Hoff / Beateworks / Corbis, © John Carnemolla / Corbis
