Ogilvy Media’s young talent to represent Sri Lanka at Cannes Lions Festival

Ogilvy Media’s Dulanjali Dilrukshi and Sanoj Fernando will be representing Sri Lanka in the Young Lions Media competition at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, to be held 18-22 June.            

The duo was selected after emerging winners at this year’s Young Lions Competition in Colombo, and will be the first from Ogilvy Media to represent Sri Lanka in the youth competition of the world’s biggest awards festival for the creative and marketing communications, entertainment, design and tech industries. 

Adjudged the winners from 11 teams that participated in the Media category of the local Young Lions competition, the campaign by Dulanjali and Sanoj titled “The Final Trump (Awasan Thurumpuwa)” was especially commended for its novelty and clever strategy. 

This is the latest in a series of similar achievements for the young talent in the Phoenix Ogilvy Group, which saw them sweeping the boards at the 2017 local Young Spikes Competition, winning all three categories of Media, Digital and Integrated. 

“I am extremely proud of Dulanjali and Sanoj for their achievement, which is a win for all of us in the company. At Ogilvy Media, we have a distinctive approach to media planning and buying. It is first important to identify the business problem at the root of any campaign, accurately profile the target audience, and then isolate the platforms from which they consume information the most. This becomes imperative when operating in the current environment, where there are a multitude of platforms and media available. This is why we constantly coach our staff to develop robust media strategies that will effectively bring to life any creative strategy, because one cannot work without the other,” said Ogilvy Media and Neo@Ogilvy Managing Director Lalith Sumanasiri. 

Dulanjali and Sanoj started their careers at Ogilvy Media in 2015 and 2016 respectively, with Dulanjali simultaneously continuing her education at the Open University of Sri Lanka, while Sanoj joined the company after completing his Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from the University of Ruhuna. 

“Working at Ogilvy Media is actually like being in university. Our clients work with us in close partnership to always find the most effective use of media, which means we are required to always raise the bar in thinking and innovation. The support and guidance of the seniors, the weekly training sessions, and competitions such as this, keep pushing us to improve ourselves and be future ready media strategists,” commented the winning duo.