Creative agency Apparent named winners of Sydney Story Factory Teams Challenge

Creative agency Apparent has taken out the prize in the Sydney Story Factory Teams Challenge in a hard fought competition.

The competition featured teams from media, creative and experiential agencies as well as media house MCN, whose submission was awarded a Highly Commended by the jury.

The other two finalists were global independent Five by Five and IPG Mediabrands media agency Initiative.

Judges(l-r): Nathan Wilson, Microsoft; Alex Hayes, Mumbrella; Jane Wasmuth, Sydney Story Factory; Nina Nyman, UnLtd

Nathan Wilson, product marketing lead of Microsoft, the sponsors of the competition, said: “I loved this idea. The passion they had for the SSF was infectious.

“They really connected with the brief and that showed through the presentation and idea. Simple, succinct and can be amplified to reach new audiences with lots of legs beyond the core idea.”

The competition challenged the teams to come up with an interactive mechanism to allow people to ‘walk in the shoes’ of the marginalised children the Redfern-based charity helps, in order to attract more donors and volunteers to its cause and raise awareness of its launch next year in Parramatta. Entries were judged from a written submission with shortlisted finalists interviewed by the jury over Skype.

Teams were encouraged to collaborate with colleagues from offices in other states using the Microsoft Teams software, which is part of the Office365 suite.

 

Sydney independent Apparent’s submission led with the idea of teasing stories written by the children during ad breaks on Sydney radio stations, targeting parents on school runs.

The campaign then encourages them to seek out the rest of the story via a dedicated content hub in the Sydney Story Factory website, where they can find the rest of the story narrated by an actor and other stories from the students. These would also be made available on other audio services spreading the breadth of the campaign.

Apparent also laid out plans to engage well-known authors and critics, allow people to ‘Sponsor a story’ and be sent a video of its writing and editing process using Office 365, and plans to expand the campaign using an animated video series of the stories, and even an integration with Vivid Sydney.

Juror Jayne Wasmuth, development manager for the Sydney Story Factory, said of the submission: “These guys clearly really ‘get’ Sydney Story Factory.

“Their solution works on three levels that made it stand out straight away: it instantaneously compels audiences to walk in the shoes of a young person who has discovered the joy of creative writing; it reaches audiences who are completely new to us in an emotionally impactful way; and it’s both achievable and sustainable.”

The judges put Apparent’s Hamish Grieve and Katie Chatfield under the microscope

Nina Nyman, marketing manager for media and marketing industry charitable foundation UnLtd, who also sat on the jury, added: “Apparent were clearly a passionate team who really understood the brief and the Sydney Story Factory. It was a very thorough proposal built on a great idea that has plenty of potential for expansion and is realistic to implement.”