ACA hosts bootcamp to prepare Young Lions teams for global competition in Cannes

Last Wednesday, Advertising Council Australia (ACA) hosted an exclusive Young Lions Bootcamp for the five teams set to represent Australia at the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The session brought together Young Lions Australia 2024 alumni, judges, and industry leaders to equip this year’s competitors with the tools, insights, and inspiration to take on the global stage with confidence.

The session kicked off with Remi Baker, Director of Insights and Innovation at Powered, Nine – a 2015 Young Lion who drew on her experience to deliver a no-holds-barred account of what it’s like to compete at Cannes and the ten things she wishes she knew going in.

Her advice: prepare before the brief even drops. Study past winning entries, build out templates, and establish your creative process ahead of time to save precious minutes.

Lisa Day, Director of Powered at Nine, joined Baker to share their collective wisdom on pitching, a crucial part of the Young Lions format.

They outlined what makes a pitch land: clarity, structure, storytelling, and presence, reminding the group that the best presentations take the audience on a journey that dramatises the problem and presents your idea as the hero, and encouraged teams to lean into their strengths, own their presentation style, and not shy away from injecting personality and passion into their delivery.

Young Lions alumni then shared advice related to each category, including Maddy McGuiness, Creative, VML (Film), Jodie Allen, Group Director, Match & Wood (Media), Arianne Riley and Krishma Sood, Assistant Brand Manager and Senior Marketing Manager at The Arnott’s Group (Marketing), Jake Rowland, Art Director, M&C Saatchi (Digital), and Millie Clout, Senior Business Manager, Howatson+Company (PR).

Closing out the session, past Young Lions judges Chris Brown, former SVP/Chief Customer Officer, McDonalds, and Asier Carazo, Chief Strategy Officer at Atomic 212º, offered a glimpse into what it’s like to sit on the other side of the judges’ table, encouraging competitors to keep slides highly visual and deliver them with clarity and conviction.

“You’re at a celebration of bold, brave, disruptive thinking,” said Brown. “So be brave – don’t worry too much about practicality.”

As Australia’s five teams prepare to take on the world in Cannes, having competed and won the rigorous Young Lions competition, it’s clear that Australia is sending world-class talent.

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