The Young Lions Ecuador competition is an event held to reward the creativity of young professionals in the Ecuadorian industry and give them the opportunity to travel to Cannes Lions, the largest festival of creativity in the world, which will be held in France, from June 19 to 23 this year years. The aim of the competition is to select the best creative proposal of this call according to the guidelines of the Cannes Film Festival and according to the category in which couples participate.

A Casa Grande U. student will have a learning experience at Roger Hatchuel Academy

The participants met during the second semester of advertising studies at the University of the Americas (UDLA) after working together academically, since then they became inseparable friends and carried out many activities, including professional ones, complementing each other.

The topic of the final brief that made them the winner was postpartum depression. Photo: Courtesy

Ana Paula is currently a senior writer at Publicis Ecuador, an expert in writing and interpreting ideas in verse. Mishelle is the art director of the company Leo Burnett Ecuador, which is part of the Publicis group, and is in charge of the graphic part so that the works have everything necessary to fulfill the set goals.

The synergy we achieved when taking ideas and translating them both in lines and graphics was essential to bring everything together in the best way.

Michelle Villavicencio Ponce, 28 years old. Art Director Leo Burnett Ecuador. Publicist (UDLA) with a master’s degree in graphic design and art direction. (It’s Design Barcelona)

The creativity competition consisted of solving, for approximately eight hours, the delivery of a short in the category prints. “The two of us sit down and brainstorm ideas, or what we in the creative industry call ‘pimponear,'” Mishelle explains. Topic of short of the final, and that made them the winners, was about postpartum depression.

All the people who have had the opportunity to experience Cannes Lions have always told us that it marks a before and after in their professional life; So, our expectations are huge. We hope to represent Ecuador in the best possible way and have a lot of fun in the process.

Ana Paula Jacome Salguero, 26 years old. Creative writer at Publicis Ecuador. He graduated in advertising at the Universidad de las Américas, specializing in creativity at the School of Advertising Creatives Argentina.

Apart from being an inspiration, comments Ana Paula, it was a very deep work of empathy. “Michelle and I aren’t moms, so first we read blogs from women who were going through postpartum depression.” So they discovered that almost most women who go through this condition prefer to hide it because they are constantly looking at social networks influential persons and celebrities predicting ‘perfect motherhood’.

“We continued to research and discovered that in fact most of the ‘exemplary mothers’ also went through postpartum depression, and with Michelle we knew we had found our idea,” adds Ana Paula.

However, Mishelle states that the graphic conceptualization was not an easy task, because it was necessary to find a middle ground between the depiction of the period of postpartum depression on the timeline and, above all, that the target audience immediately connect with the graphic in an educational way, leaving aside the aesthetics and “festival” the style you should have.

The creators researched some cases and found that most of the ‘exemplary mothers’ also went through postpartum depression and used some of these figures in their presentations. Photo: Courtesy

“I made the first sketch and when I saw the result I didn’t feel satisfied, I had some kind of intuition and I added to the experience that I tried a second time; Ana Paula’s trust in me made me feel confident about the final work,” explains Mishelle.