Sarva creatives off to Cannes

Two young creative and marketing communications professionals from Sarva Integrated were recently selected to represent Sri Lanka at the most prestigious advertising festival – Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Winners Hibshi Moulana and Kavinda Welegedara will be representing Sri Lanka in the highly competitive film category against the best and the brightest creative professionals from across the globe; each representing his nation and competing to take home a widely sought-after Cannes Young Lions award. 

The team won the local Young Lions competition, which was held in April 2016, following their thought-provoking commercial that raised awareness about the social stigma surrounding HIV victims. The competition involved nearly 40 participants going head to head in teams of two to bring their respective agencies honour and acclaim by winning the opportunity to represent Sri Lanka at Cannes. 

Winners were also selected in the Media, Cyber and Young Marketers categories; all of whom will be competing in their respective categories to bring glory to Sri Lanka. In a novel ceremony, the agency bid farewell to the team on June 14. Speaking at the occasion, Managing Director Chrishantha Jayasinghe stated, “It’s been a great year for Sarva Integrated. We’ve been honoured with two Gold Creative Abby awards and the title of ‘Best of South Asia’ in the highly competitive Indian advertising landscape at Goafest 2016. The opportunity for two of our own to represent Sri Lanka in Cannes is definitely the icing on the cake.”

Sarva Integrated recently celebrated its 11th successful year in advertising and is noted for leveraging local insights to create iconic homegrown advertising for a wide portfolio of brands including DIMO, Denta, Softlogic Finance and Lanka Bell. The agency has also been in the limelight consistently for both creativity and result-oriented communication in both local and international award festivals, including Effies and Goafest.