The film shows an important pole vaulting competition featuring many recognisable competitors from television and print ads, such as the “Dentist who endorses toothpastes in TV commercials”.

We watch all participants getting ready to compete. They try to jump, but since the ideas they represent are not creative, and are cliches, they don’t get over the bar. At the end of the film, we challenge young advertising professionals to present their portfolios while we remind everyone that the “bar is set high”.

When we want achieve a greater level of quality in advertising, we say that “the bar is set high”. In other words, means that we need to overcome limits in order to reach a great creative result. This expression is much used in our daily routine, so when the professionals received the poles, instantly realized that besides having the opportunity to be selected to get an all-expense-paid trip to Cannes, they were also facing great challenge. It was very cool to watch professionals walking around in advertising agencies holding huge poles. That was definitely a creative asset of great impact.

The activation proved to be very focused, effective, since we were trying to reach a very narrow target audience, approximately 1,500 professionals in the market who were eligible to participate, up to 28 years old. We had instant feedback on social networks, with comments and photos of professionals “testing” the pole inside the agencies. We’ve managed to beat the record with more than 600 entries, an increase of almost 40% over the previous year. With a very small budget US$2,000*, reaching our entire target audience.

* budget came from the sponsors of the Young Lions Brazil 2013 Program.