Iaa ‘Big Idea’ Winners Tackle Coca-Cola’s Recycling Sustainability Project

IAA Australia’s Big Idea 2019 in collaboration with Coca-Cola challenged  university  students across the country to create an initiative to encourage more Australians to recycle using container deposit schemes.

The brief from Coca-Cola stated: “We are looking for compelling always-on solutions to ensure plastic bottles have the best chance of becoming another bottle again.”

IAA Big Idea is Australia's national marketing communications challenge specially created for undergraduate student teams from Australian universities and colleges with courses in advertising, marketing, media and communications. IAA Big Idea gives students the opportunity to hone their communication skills and talents in a real world, career-ready experience that is critical training in the preparation of graduates for transition from university into professional practice.

Over 200 hundred undergraduate university students from all around Australia participated in this year’s competition, which invited teams to drive behavior change and leverage technology to enable consumers to recycle more and better access deposit schemes.

After multiple rounds of judging five finalist teams were selected to “live” pitch their marketing solutions to the jury of senior industry practitioners, the client and IAA Board members.  All five finalist teams were from IAA accredited university courses Australia-wide.

The IAA announced Charles Sturt University’s “Kajulu Blue” team as National Champions of the IAA Big Idea 2019 Challenge. Joint runners-up are University of Canberra’s “Enigma” team and Charles Sturt University’s “Kajulu White” team. The other two finalist teams were Edith Cowan University’s “Boomerang Two“ and University of Technology Sydney’s “Echo Creatives”.

The winning team was presented with their trophy at a special event hosted by Coca-Cola, and was attended by 40 IAA Big Idea finalists who came to Sydney present their "Big Ideas" to the judging panel and IAA directors. 

Leo Roberts, Coca-Cola Integrated Marketing Communications Director and jury member for the challenge said: “All of the finalists impressed us with their passion and professionalism. Across the board the quality of their strategic thinking, creativity and focus on executional excellence was very inspiring. What impressed us most was the way in which all of the finalists put the consumer at the centre of the problem-solving process to develop ideas that created a true value exchange."

IAA Big Idea 2019 delivered some impressive performances from the finalist teams and some innovative submissions from all the participants. The students’ passion and energy for tackling this challenging brief from Coca-Cola certainly came through, apart from the excellent research and insights the teams generated to inform and underpin their solutions to the sustainability project brief.

The jury had a very, very tough job. Ultimately the winning idea came from Kajulu Blue, Charles Sturt University. The team impressed the judges with their idea as it was built off a real insight, delivered via an innovative design solution and demonstrated an understanding of how to change behaviour over the long term.

Congratulations to Kajulu Blue and to all the finalists. Judging by the quality of the final presentations and the depth of talent on display, it is clear our industry has a bright future indeed”.

Gayle Wilde, as Jury Chair, IAA Director and CEO Clemenger BBDO summed up the judges' verdict:

"It was an absolute honour to chair and judge the IAA Big Idea Awards.  Today we saw a sample of the next generation of marketers, and we have some amazing talent coming through that will contribute immensely to the on-going success of our industry.

The quality of thinking, creativity and passion reinforce that we have an exciting future ahead.”

Carla Arcuri, Team Leader, Kajulu Blue, National Champions said:

“The IAA Big Idea experience was nothing short of incredible. To not only present our Big Idea to Coca-Cola themselves, but to see a panel of smiles and nods and be told it was strategically solid, has been a major university highlight. What we learnt from interpreting and responding to a live brief feels invaluable as we prepare to enter the industry” 

IAA Australia Chairman Emeritus, Heather Leembruggen, said on the day that the quality of entries and presentations gets better every year. 

This is what makes IAA Big Idea so rewarding for the IAA as well as the student participants and we are proud to be able for the past 17 years to give hundreds of students, in the upcoming generation of practitioners, the opportunity to sharpen their skills and use their talents in working on a hands-on project for a real-life client in a real world  situation which gives them a real learning experience and helps equip them for their future careers. Fostering professional development is a key IAA mission and IAA 'Big Idea’ encapsulates that.

My congratulations to all those who participated in the IAA Big Idea 2019 challenge – they all won an amazing experience!”

The winning IAA Big Idea, as well as all the ideas submitted by the students, are made available to be implemented by Coca-Cola.

The jury for this year’s competition included; Chair of the Jury, Gayle While, CEO Clemenger BBDO , Leo Roberts – Director, IMC, Coca-Cola South Pacific, Adam Ross – Content Lead, Coca-Cola South Pacific, Dermott O’Gorman - CEO,WWF, Lee Tucknott – Chief Design Officer, RXP Group, Danielle McWilliam – Director Customer Experience, ThinkTV, Vivienne Kelly - Editor, Mumbrella .

This year, IAA Big Idea has been proudly supported by Coca-Cola as Client Partner, ThinkTV as Planning Partner, and Mumbrella as Media Partner.

For more information: www.IAABigIdea.com