ICCO is pleased to announce that the USA team of Ben King and Michael Di Salvo from Ogilvy Public Relations have won the gold award at the Young PR Lions Competition 2016, sponsored by ICCO and partners Ketchum, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Ogilvy Public Relations, Weber Shandwick and FleishmanHillard.

The team won the accolade at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2016 which is currently taking place. The PR Young Lions competition saw 20 teams send their selected teams of two PRs under the age of 30 to Cannes. On Saturday 18th June, the teams were each given a brief by Nikhil Seth, Executive Director, United Nations, and on the following day had 12 hours to create a creative and effective campaign.

Winning the silver award was Norway’s team of Scott Olav Allan and Henriette Frølich Holte of Gambit Hill+Knowlton Strategies; and winning bronze was the UK’s team of Paul Stollery and Matt Watson, Hotwire PR.

Francis Ingham MPRCA, Chief Executive, ICCO PR, said: “It is with great pleasure that we applaud Ben and Michael’s win and the placing of both Gambit Hill+Knowlton and Hotwire PR’s teams. Seeing the level of talent at this year’s festival has demonstrated to me that the future of our industry is in very good hands and all three teams should be incredibly proud.”

Blair Metcalfe, Client Director, MSLGROUP, said: “The efforts, the creativity, the inspiring ideas they came up with are a great exposition of the quality of our industry; it’s diversifying. I’m sure all of them will be back winning Lions at Cannes on the main stage in a few years to come.”

The Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners are:

Gold

Ben King and Michael DiSalvo

Ogilvy Public Relations, USA

Silver

Scott Olav Allan and Henriette Frølich Holte

Gambit Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Norway

Bronze

Paul Stollery and Matt Watson

Hotwire PR, United Kingdom