Maria da Silva & Vasileios Vrakas – France’s ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup Finalists
Maria da Silva and Vasileios Vrakas form France’s finalist duo in the 5 day long, ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finals. As the competition period comes to a close today, October 18th, we wanted to take some time out to celebrate talented finalists from around the world for making it to this stage.
Over the last 5 days, all teams have worked to create and film a video pitch of an original campaign for a brief set by Think Tank, the International SOS Foundation.
Maria da Silva, Consultante Influence with Agence Proches & ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finalist
As of today, an international team of judges will score each pitch. Winners will be announced on October 21st. But for now, indulge in this joint round of Q&A, as we get to know a little bit about team France!
Q: What’s your favourite PR campaign that you’ve been involved in or have seen?
Maria & Vasileios : “A hard pill to swallow” for the Swedish pharma network APOTEK HJÄRTAT. The campaign raises awareness on water pollution by pharmaceutical factories in manufacturing countries such as India.
To highlight the problem, the designers of the campaign created a new kind of medicine (pill) made from the active substances extracted from the water polluted by the pharmaceutical factories.
Omnicom PR Group France’s Vasileios Vrakas, Account Manager, Digital & PR as well as an ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finalist
The pills were sent to politicians together with a medication package insert that states what was found in the water, what the effects are on people’s health, and what needed to be done for better regulation of the industry.
The campaign was highlighted in Sweden’s and Europe’s biggest news outlets and won first place at Eurobest 2020 Awards.
Q: What does being creative mean to you?
Maria & Vasileios: Creativity is getting people to see things with fresh new eyes. Just like an artist would do. It involves changing the way things are offered to the public’s eye, by altering their properties or dimensions, getting things out from their usual context or questioning social standards.
Q: Favourite social media account to follow?
Maria& Vasileios: Creapills on twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram… Innovative ideas, original campaigns and art: everything we need to boost our creativity.
The official winners of the 2021 PR World Cup finals will be announced on October 21st, across all ICCO platforms.
