NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Last night, Lions Health together with UNICEF and Unilever, launched the Young Lions Health Award, an exciting new competition for young creatives and marketers that aims to improve challenges facing global health systems in developing countries.

For UNICEF, one of the key challenges for children to survive and thrive is creating the awareness that health is not just about supplies or specific initiatives – but about creating a more sustainable system that reaches every child with basic, lifesaving health services. Effective health systems are not just about providing medicines, doctors, and facilities, they are also about communicating with those communities and educating families about the importance of seeking care and support.

To date, communications around child health have been fragmented and divided into silos, such as sanitation, HIV and vaccination, preventing an integrated approach in generating awareness and support.

The Young Lions Award calls on the young creative industry to develop a compelling campaign that would help address this challenge. UNICEF will utilise the winning campaign as the basis for engaging the general public to advocate and mobilise support for better, child-focused health systems. Communication and marketing professionals, under the age of 30, are invited to submit their campaign concepts online commencing on 25 February.

Speaking at the event, Philip Thomas, CEO of Lions Festivals, said that “as organisers of a global annual awards and Festival for creative excellence in pharma and healthcare & wellness, it was a natural move to introduce an award that will help propel and showcase young industry talent.” He continued that he was “delighted to have the support of both UNICEF and Unilever whose involvement meant that beyond recognising talent, the competition served a higher purpose in generating awareness of the need to strengthen health systems in the developing world.”

Speaking about their involvement, Gerard Bocquenet, Director Fundraising and Partnerships of UNICEF, said, “The Cannes Lions-UNICEF-Unilever partnership is precisely the type of bold and innovative initiative required to leverage public engagement to create lasting – and life-saving – change for the most excluded and vulnerable children. The Young Lions initiative is a great opportunity for UNICEF to tap into an unparalleled source of creative communication ideas to raise support to help UNICEF strengthen health systems in the developing world.”