Eleven young marketing communications professionals from Sri Lanka have been selected to represent the country at the prestigious Young Lions Competitions and the Roger Hatchuel Academy in Cannes, France in June 2015.
The local competition to select the teams to represent Sri Lanka, was organised by Metal Factor the Sri Lankan Representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in partnership with the International Advertising Association (IAA), Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies (4As) and Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM).
The Sri Lankan Young Lions will compete against the best teams from around the world at the Young Lions Competitions in the categories of Film, Print, Design, Cyber and Young Marketer. This year, a total of 100 young professionals from the marketing communications industry, took part in the local competition. Infas Nias and Sarah Ramu of Digibrush Productions emerged as the winners of the Film category whilst Rinesh Jayarathne and Hassan Samdin of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. won the Print category. Dushan Pieris and Chanuka Wijayasinghe of Phoenix O & M won the Design category and Shehan Samarasinghe and Dilan Ariyaratna of Triad emerged as winners of the Cyber category. Tasneem Dawoodbhoy from Leo Burnett secured her place to attend the Roger Hatchuel Academy and Nuwan Rathnayake and Aveen Sathishka Pathirage of Nestlé Lanka won the local Young Lions Marketers Competition, which was conducted in partnership with SLIM. 
Contestants who competed in the Film category were required to produce a TV commercial that created awareness about the importance of proper plastic waste disposal methods. The commercial had to modify people’s attitudes about waste disposal and inspire them to use and dispose of polythene and plastic waste in the correct manner. In the Print category, contestants had to create an advertising campaign for a charity called ‘Ramp Up Sri Lanka’, to convince architects, prospective building owners and lawmakers on the importance of leaving allocations for wheelchair access in buildings across Sri Lanka.
The brief in the Design category, required the contestants to tap into their skills to help recruit young talent into the advertising industry. The contestants had to use their skills to design material to move the younger generation to embrace an exciting career change. The Cyber competition called on teams to showcase a business institute’s superior education product, whilst capturing the social interaction and fun aspects that are offered by the institute as well. The brief required the contestants to develop four activities that could be conducted throughout the year to engage, inspire and excite potential students.  
This year marks the fourth consecutive year in which the Young Lions Marketer Competition has been held. This competition offers young professionals in the marketing industry an opportunity to gain exposure at the world’s most esteemed marketing communications event. The Young Marketer Competition attracted several teams from various marketing companies in Sri Lanka and was conducted in partnership with the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM). 
Commenting on this year’s competition, Ranil de Silva, Sri Lanka’s Representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity stated, “I am proud to be standing here today with 11 talented young professionals who have earned the honour of representing Sri Lanka at the 62nd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year. It is a great pleasure to see the enthusiasm for this competition amongst the youth in the industry. This year we are proud to have the largest delegation of youth from Sri Lanka, representing the country at Cannes. We believe that this opportunity will provide our young professionals with an extremely valuable learning experience that will positively impact their careers and their professional growth.”