The creative team that will be representing Canada in an advertising playoff at this year’s International Advertising Festival in Cannes – Brad Monk and Aubrey Singer of Chiat/Day, Toronto – was selected from among 20 teams that participated in a special pre-selection contest.

The contest was conducted through Strategy in conjunction with sponsors Cineplex Odeon, Canadian Airlines International and The Partners’ Film Company.

Cineplex, Canadian and Partners’ are providing the team with air fare, hotel accommodations and full delegate fees.

We invited creative people at any agency in Canada to create a print advertising campaign to promote Canadian advertising.

The pre-selection worked this way: we suggested the ads would run in a magazine published daily during the festival. ‘Think of this as a house ad for Canadian advertising,’ we said.

Twenty concepts were submitted and judged individually by a panel of nine advertising professionals from across Canada.

The judges scored each submission on a scale of 0 to 10.

The scores were averaged and a winner declared. In several cases, conflicts were declared by judges and submission averages were adjusted accordingly.

(The winning campaign is shown opposite.)

The judges were:

– Alvin Wasserman, president and creative director of Wasserman and Partners Advertising, Vancouver.

– Kari Grist, director customer communications Canadian Airlines International, Calgary.

– Brian Harrod, creative director, Harrod and Mirlin, Toronto.

– Jane Pritchard, senior vice-president/executive creative director, Young & Rubicam, Toronto.

– Terry O’Malley, chairman and copywriter, Vickers & Benson Advertising, Toronto.

– Judy John, partner, Guerrilla TV, Toronto.

– Geoffrey B. Roche, president and creative director, Roche Macaulay and Partners Advertising, Toronto.

– Paul Lavoie, president and creative director, TAXI L’Agence de Publicite, Montreal.

– Noel O’Dea, president, Target Marketing and Communications, St. John’s, Nfld.

Monk and Singer will be competing against agency teams from around the world in an initiative introduced this year by the festival called the ‘Young Creatives Print Competition.’

Teams will arrive on Sunday, one day before the festival officially begins. Each team will be asked to create a print campaign based on a brief for a fictitious client.

The teams will be using the latest technology from Apple, and will have access to other print-related production technology and a stock photo library to help produce their campaigns.

Each concept will be displayed before the festival’s 4,000 delegates and the actual press and poster panel of international judges will select a winner.

The winners will be announced at a Black Tie gala on Tuesday evening.