Day 3 of the LIA Creative LIAisons program, brought a new challenge to the LIAisons. After two days of soaking in insights from industry titans, participants were then asked to dive into the ‘Create and Make’ workshop challenge, powered by BMF, Superplastic, and TikTok.
The “Create and Make” challenge began with an immersive workshop led by Tara McKenty, Creative LIAisons 2024 moderator and Chief Innovation Officer & Executive Creative Director at BMF Sydney. Nancy Bennett, Experiential Creative Producer at Superplastic, joined McKenty in guiding teams through experience mapping. McKenty introduced the Crazy 8 rapid ideation exercise, followed by Anthony Dever from TikTok, who guided teams in storyboarding their shortlisted concepts. Experts then provided valuable insights and feedback during creative consultation sessions.
Twelve teams—each comprised of mentees from different backgrounds—had less than one day to ideate, craft, and pitch compelling content to an esteemed jury. Working in a time crunch, and having 10-12 creatives all on one team, led each team to find the best ways to work together, work efficiently, and use their individual strengths to arrive at a common goal.
McKenty said: “There are many ways to get to great ideas. This workshop arms participants with shortcuts to get to the best creative innovation. I use these techniques myself.”
After an intense workshop, teams had just two hours to dream up a new operating company for the fictitious villainous Supercorp, a part of Paul Budnitz’s wildly successful Superplastic Universe. Known for its animated characters like Janky and Guggimon, Superplastic commands a massive following of over 26 million fans across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. With collaborations with giants like Gucci and Fortnite, and millions in real and virtual product sales, the pressure was on. Teams had to pitch this fictional entity via a TikTok video, crafting new characters with intriguing backstories and innovative product concepts.
The jurors were astounded by the creativity, humor, and craftsmanship that emerged in just two hours, with entries tackling themes from fake news in the media to cancel culture to hypersexualization.
“Thank you, everyone, for the impressive work; you all simply blew me away by how far you exceeded my expectations,” says Bennett. “We hope to do this again with Creative LIAisons next year.”
Art Director at Grey Malaysia, Yet Yun (Anlyne) Chen, was apart of the winning team, Team Doom Dolls (pictured above). They created ‘Foul Play,’ a fictitious Supercorp whose purpose was to “empower Slackivists to piss off Billionaires.” Their creativity led them to Doom Dolls: a collection of voodoo dolls representing the world’s most hated Billionaires. Leaning into the Gen Z’s love of escapism by using gaming and social media, they created a way in which Gen Z can get out their frustrations with the elite. Adding to the excitement of winning this workshop, Team Doom Dolls was awarded with a party bus ride to an evening of golf and drinks at Top Golf by Superplastic, BMF and TikTok.
Team Joys R Us also received a special mention for their provocative idea that took evil to the next level by creating vibrating sex toys for kids, as a means to call out the hypersexualization of children.
