Idea 1: Mental Health Advertising

The Challenge: We face a critical issue: declining youth mental health, particularly among young men. Traditional masculinity norms, ingrained from a young age, discourage vulnerability and emotional expression. This creates a "hero mentality," hinders emotional literacy, and fosters a fear of stigma and judgment, ultimately preventing young people from seeking help.

The Opportunity: While societal shifts are crucial, advertising can play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between young people in need and the mental health services available. The current system often feels unapproachable – too formal, distant, and intimidating. This is compounded by the fact that many mental health practices and NGOs lack the resources and expertise to effectively market themselves to this audience.

The Insight: These organizations prioritize operations over marketing, often cutting advertising budgets first. However, we are entering an era where AI-powered tools can revolutionize content creation, enabling us to move faster, create more compelling visuals, and ultimately, deliver impactful messaging at a fraction of the traditional cost.

The Solution: AI-Powered Tool

My solution would be to come up with a AI based tool that can help mental health services become more visually and tonally appealing to a new young audience that needs it.

Idea 2: Gambling advertising.

Article 1: Gambling isn’t fair.

Gambling advertising is controversial because sports betting is inherently designed for customers to lose, with bookmakers building margins into every bet and employing variable pricing that favors less experienced punters while limiting the stakes of consistent winners. This creates a system where losses are unlimited, but potential gains are capped, and gambling advertising perpetuates this exploitative model by focusing on increasing individual spending among those who continually bet and lose, rather than rewarding strategic, winning players.

Article 2: Gambling ads in culture, and how pro and anti gambling ads sit in the advertising industry (creatively)

Gambling ads have become ubiquitous, often employing bland, hyper-masculine messaging that normalizes betting as a social activity, contrasting sharply with public health campaigns that highlight the broader social and psychological harms of gambling addiction, including deteriorating relationships and mental health struggles. While pro-gambling ads like Sportsbet's "Have a Crack" campaign embed betting into Australian culture by linking it with everyday challenges, anti-gambling campaigns attempt to disrupt the automatic thought patterns triggered by gambling stimuli in problem gamblers, yet the normalization of gambling through advertising persists, particularly among young people, raising concerns about the industry's impact on society and the need for greater regulation. 

Article 3: People don’t understand the personal impact of gambling advertising

It's easy to think gambling addiction is someone else's problem, but the reality is it's a pervasive issue that can devastate anyone's life, leading to financial ruin, mental health struggles, and even suicide. Gambling advertising normalizes this dangerous activity, creating a false sense of control while ignoring the fact that the house always wins. Despite the staggering financial losses and the severe personal consequences, gambling advertising faces far less scrutiny than tobacco advertising, prompting the urgent question: how much more damage must be done before we prioritize people's well-being over profits and implement meaningful restrictions?

I wrote an article that dives into more detail on the above. All in which to form an open brief to our agency and get people thinking.

Idea 3: Period care.

Insight: Festivals can get messy, especially over multiple days, with shared facilities like bathrooms becoming unhygienic.

Problem: Women who have their period during a festival face added discomfort, dealing with unhygienic facilities when they’re already managing their period.

Idea: A mobile sanitary unit offering clean and private period care at music festivals.