MDS AdSchool Students score 23 finalists at the shortlist stage of Ad Stars Awards 2021

Out of a total of 2,920 entries into the nonprofessional category of Ad Stars from students around the world, a shortlist of 151 finalists going onto the final round of judging was announced on Friday. Breaking their previous record, Media Design School’s advertising students have scored 23 of those shortlisted places.

Says Kate Humphries, programme director: “And they’ve scored them across a wide range of categories, including scoring 3 out of only 4 ideas shortlisted worldwide in the Diverse Insights category. So, let’s start off with raucous applause for a great achievement in that rarity of a category for Bella Rakate & Sam Taunton Clark for NFTakeback (also shortlisted in the Direct category); Zak Hawkins & Logan Ware for Covid Currency (also shortlisted in PR), and Zak Hawkins & Émilie Wright for Spotify’s Too Diverse for Radio (also shortlisted in Outdoor). Following that up we have standing ovations for Maria Masniak & Callum Bately for WikiBlocks (Wikipedia), shortlisted in both the Creative E-commerce and Media categories; Bayleigh Way & James Greig for The BiOlympic Tattoo, shortlisted in both PR and Social & Influencer categories; Jack Close & Alex Erkkila for Spotify Saplings, shortlisted in the Innovation & Green categories; Jonno Entwistle & Catalina Nunez Elevancini for Reverse Turnitin, shortlisted in Mobile and Design; Leon Bristow & James McCulloch for Gum Defense (Wrigleys), shortlisted in Design and Brand Experience & Activation categories; Alyssa Yeoman & Sam Issacs for Babytoos (Johnson & Johnson), shortlisted in the Social & Influencer category; Marcelo Dario for Luggage (whirli.com), shortlisted in Print; Maria Masniak & Jonno Entwistle for Your Own Radio Station (Spotify) shortlisted in Design; Maria Masniak & Catalina Nunez Elevancini for You Run The Show (Netflix), shortlisted in Design; Jack Pfiszter & Jonno Entwistle for This is an NFT (OpenSea), shortlisted in Design; Alyssa Yeoman & Courtney Andersen for Burger King Redundancies also shortlisted in Design; and Bella Rakate, Marisa Watson, & James Greig for Car Brain (Spotify) shortlisted in Brand Experience & Activation.

“It’s a great haul across a number of categories, which means every subject area we’ve taught in the first half of the year has been acknowledged by international  industry judges. But we couldn’t have done that without input from industry-so, a huge thanks to our two industry guests who came in to critique specific projects: Michael Tam (global design director at IBM iX Hong Kong) and Tamryn Kerr (creative director VLMY&R London) as well as high fives all around to our local industry panelists Dave Shirley (FCB), Adam Thompson (Augusto), Jacob Newton &  Josep Jover (DDB), as well as Justin Butler, Letizia Bozzolini and Tom Johnson (Special) who all came in to critique a massive 44 ideas for our first industry panel of the year.”