The Hong Kong Young Lions Competition, run in association with Pathfinders, a charity that supports migrant domestic workers (MDWs) who become pregnant or have children while working in Hong Kong, is aimed at building empathy for expectant mothers and educating people about the support available. Catherine Gurtin, CEO of Pathfinders and judge of the PRHK Young Lions, said, "Monika and Burton’s campaign demonstrated their understanding of the challenge these women face and brought it to life by encouraging Hong Kongers to see and hear their real life stories." 

To learn more about the winning campaign #ShareThePath, their creativity and challenges they faced in the process, Telum talked to the Hong Kong Cannes Young Lions winners, Monika Marczuk and Burton Leung where they shared their experience.

Can you tell us more about your winning campaign and how you came up with the idea to use an experiential storytelling approach?
Monika: Our campaign was inspired by the name and vision of Pathfinders themselves. We wanted all members of our target audience to experience the path that MDWs have walked, so we focused our idea on sharing paths from the perspective of different stakeholders - that of the MDWs, employers, and Pathfinders. This enables people to see the issue from each side and more easily resonate. #ShareThePath uses the city as its storyboard, building paths in the busiest locations to showcase that the issue exists all around us.

Burton: We used an experiential storytelling approach for our campaign as we feel it’s important that people engage emotionally with the issue at hand and ask themselves - "what if this was me?". We were inspired by the name and vision of Pathfinders, and wanted to create an idea that would have a strong impression on people. To capture their attention we needed to do something big, and target an area where our target audiences would see it. We decided to build actual paths across the city’s busiest locations and enhance the idea that the issue exists all around us. The #ShareThePath campaign is designed to be an O2O movement. Encouraging pregnant MDWs to voice out their fears while allowing the community to contribute their stories and build a digital path for Pathfinders. 

As young professionals do you have any tips for creating a campaign under pressure like this? What were the main takeaways for you from the process?
Monika: Don’t try to combine multiple ideas into one - focus on one "big idea" and work from there to outline the strategy, approach and what it will achieve. Think about your audience first - how does your campaign effectively impact the target audience? Especially when the target audience is comprised of different groups.

Burton: Enjoy the pressure - pressure makes diamonds. But remember, you don’t necessarily need to work "under" pressure, you can work "over" it. I personally enjoyed the process as it pushed me to go further. I also think trust in your teammate is very important: we both have our strengths and weaknesses, but we respect each other’s point of view and creative input. We worked together not to sacrifice parts of our work, but to develop the best idea by building on our creativity together. 

You chose to focus on a marginalised cross-section of society - did you encounter any difficulties in connecting with this group? How would you approach a similar campaign in the future?
Monika: It always takes extra effort and research to understand the experience of a group you are not part of and struggles that you have never encountered yourself. The first step for us was to look at the key insights and understand the extent of the problem, and how many people it is affecting. I would approach every campaign with an analysis of the insights first. From there, it was not difficult to feel compassion towards the problem, especially as MDWs play a large part in the lives of many Hongkongers.

Burton: It is never easy to develop a campaign for a group that you’re not directly linked to. Our first step was to look at the key insights, which we developed through desktop research, talking to MDWs and a SWOT analysis. That allowed us to ensure we were “on the right path” in developing our creative idea. It was important for us to think "inside" the problem, from the perspective of each of the stakeholders.