A win worth the wait: How one team is ready to Roam Wild at Cannes

The minute that Sara Zivkovic and Patricia Gonzalez won silver at last year’s Canadian Young Lions Competition, they were thinking about winning gold. People around them said, “Stop and smell the roses.” While silver was an accomplishment, they believe it’s ok to take it in before going for more. 

“I’ve always found that saying funny because stopping to smell the roses is often the very thing that drives our desire for more. Relish in your accomplishments, but there’s nothing wrong with also wanting to have this relentless pursuit to create great work that you feel proud of, and outperform yourself,” said Patricia, a PR manager at Rethink PR. 

Armed with an eye for creativity and a hunger to make it to the top, the PR team is now gearing up for the Global Young Lions Competition, with a ticket to Cannes in hand. 

 “We’re both so competitive, so we knew we were coming back, and not settling for anything other than gold.’” said Sara, a PR specialist at Rethink PR. 

This year saw a record-breaking 796 individuals compete across seven categories, with 37 teams vying for the gold win in PR. The category was made possible with the support of Edelman. So how did they get from silver to gold? They had a unique opportunity to take the knowledge they gained from last year and refine their approach. Some things stayed constant. 

“What we kept at the core is that we always want our creative ideas to be rooted in an insight that people will actually feel connected to, so that when they read it or when they understand the idea, they feel like it’s something that really resonates with them,” said Patricia. 

Last year, Sara says they were focused on proving they could do the 24-hour turnaround with the brief. Now confident in their instincts, they could push themselves to take creative swings and make their idea “as big as possible.” 

“This year we definitely came in with that drive to find a solution that felt inevitable and really leaning into that culturally relevant yet simple and PR-driven idea,” said Sara. It was that scalability, the two agree, that made them – and their project, Roam Wild – stand out. During Earth Week, Telus turns Canadian travellers’ roaming fees into a donation for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. With a single reply – “JUBILEE,” the name of Dr. Jane’s first stuffed chimpanzee, gifted by her dad – roaming becomes conservation. 

“We leveraged Telus existing infrastructure to make a massive impact effortless for the user, and overall, I think this year it was about being smart yet simple rather than complex,” said Sara. 

Through the insight and the solution, they found a “double entendre between telecom and wildlife.” Inspiring young people to turn hope into action, they say, is no small task, considering that 86 per cent of Canadian Generation Zs live in urban centres, which can feel like a world away from wildlife at risk. At the same time, travel reconnects them to sustainability. But statistics show it can be hard to know where to start. Roam Wild does it for them. 

The change doesn’t stop after Earth Week, with a text outlining the impact that their roaming charges had on the institute. 

A key part of Roam Wild is the amplifiers, a group to promote the program through social media.  Along with a travel influencer trip to volunteer at wildlife rehabilitation centres, a key amplifier is the Kratt Brothers, the hosts of the children’s series Zoboomafoo, to launch a series of videos about the partnership. 

“We wanted to show our audience you should still care about animals just as much as you did when you were a kid watching Zoboomafoo on TV, and so that was a way that we thought would really resonate and honestly ignite that interest and awareness in a way that felt nostalgic and fun and engaging,” said Patricia. 

They say the experience to compete is one of a kind, forcing you to push your boundaries in just 24 hours. 

“You are the strategist, you are the PR professional, you are the creative, you have to do it all yourself, and that experience is so valuable to learn, and see how intersectional all these departments are, to learn how to connect with all of them, and how to make a campaign so whole and cross-collaborative,” said Sara. 

After furiously working with an endless supply of Diet Pepsi, their goal was to understand the idea as best they could to engage the judges. The minute the presentation was over, it closed the loop. 

“We were so overcome with emotion. I think we were jumping up and down in the hallway before we got into the room with the other contestants, after the presentation. And while we were confident in that moment and felt like we had it, for the first time throughout the experience, the results didn’t matter. All of the work and all of the hours that we put in paid off in the feeling that we had walking out of that room,” said Patricia.