SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business student Lydon Ong, together with his teammate Faith Low from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts has clinched the Grand Prix award at this year’s Cannes Future Lions competition. Now in its 15th year, the programme was founded by AKQA in partnership with Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to unearth creative talent in youths aged 18 – 25 globally.

Organised in partnership with the LEGO Group and Wired, the 2021 competition asked participants to use existing technology and imagination to show how creative play is an essential skill set to ‘Rebuild the World’. A record-breaking number of submissions was received from 2,300 youths over 87 countries and 525 schools this year. The Grand Prix champion would have a chance to bring their idea into reality.

Lydon’s team presented their concept, “Invented by Kids”. The idea consisted of boxes of LEGO featuring open-ended questions which allowed children to dictate what they built. It was sparked by the belief that the power of imagination in children is limitless. To prove the point, “Invented by Kids” would use LEGO bricks to turn children’s imagination into reality.

Said Lydon, “We had a tonne of ideas but one thought really ignited our whole creative campaign – instead of telling kids to build a car, how about we tell them to build a way to get around? Building a car is a finished idea, it has been done before a million times. But building a way to get around, that is a different story. It would be amazing to see the kind of imagination and creativity that could surface from that. Maybe we will see a 5-wheeled car, with a rocket blaster on its back? Maybe some kid from 20 years ago actually thought of electric vehicles, but no one really paid attention to it. It is so powerful and magical to see how far a kid’s imagination can take them, and possibly reinvent reality. Through our campaign “Invented By Kids”, we want to showcase the power of a kid’s creativity when they are left alone to create and play, and LEGO would be the centre of all that.”

A fun fact to note is that Lydon and his teammate met through LinkedIn during the Circuit Breaker period and were total strangers when they worked on the brief. They spent two weeks ideating and crafting their idea over Zoom and phone calls, without meeting in person.

When asked how SMU was instrumental in prepping him for the competition, Lydon said “SMU has always stood for a holistic education that goes beyond just academics. The SMU-X modules allowed me to hone my creative and critical thinking skills, especially since we are dealing with real clients as well. Through these experiences, I was able to better understand the Cannes Future Lions brief and think in the client’s perspective. SMU also funded the International Young Glory 20/21 advertising competition, which gave me a platform to practise and compete amongst some of the best advertising practitioners around the world. This definitely helped me to prepare for the prestigious Cannes Future Lions competition.”