CANNES – Out of 900 entries from 79 countries, DFCB Digital Philippines emerged as one of the top 8 to win in the 2013 Cannes Chimera Initiative. FCB’s James Bernardo and Arnold Liong received their grant to develop their poverty “Games versus Poverty” idea at the Cannes Chimera Awards in Cannes. DM9JaymeSyfu’s Chairmom and Chief Creative Officer Merlee Jayme, the first Filipino to mentor and judge at Cannes Chimera, presented the award.
The top 8 winners are:
• The Share Exchange by Dentsu, Young & Rubicam, Singapore
• Good Cents by Joe Public, South Africa
• The GAP index by venturethree, United Kingdom
• The Act Button by Naked Communications, Australia
• $1.25 cube experience by JWT, Israel
• Gamers VS Poverty by DFCB Digital, The Philippines
• One Two Five by PHD International, United Kingdom
• We See Women by Vital Voices Global Partnership, USA
The Cannes Chimera 2013 is a joint initiative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The brief challenged participants to create a perception-changing strategy to help eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
The winning idea from DFCB Digital is entitled Gamers vs Poverty. It’s a project that aims to educate and engage the millions of gamers about poverty and how they can be heroes inside and outside the gaming world.
As DFCB Digital chief creative officer James Bernardo shared, it didn’t take them very long to come up with the idea.
“It was actually a last minute entry, believe it or not. We had only three hours to come up with an idea,” Bernardo said in an interview with adobo.
The team , composed of James Bernardo, Ramby Libarnes, Francois Filamor , Mon Berenguer and Tatum Ancheta , immediately went with their common passion for games in different platforms as their jump-off point to put the concept together.
Two of the team members are headed to Seattle this March to get the opportunity to bring their idea to fruition with the help of 16 Cannes Lions winners who served as the jury for the 2013 Cannes Chimera.
DFCB Digital president and chief operating officer Tom Eugenio said, “We feel that the change we are talking about is already happening. It is such a great start for DFCB Digital this 2014.”
“The win is pretty amazing for us. I think what James and the team did is a clear manifestation that the agency is ready to provide clear solutions to our clients,” Eugenio said.
