"Explain cultural references to impress the jury": Tim Lindsay, D&AD

D&AD's CEO, Lindsay recently showed young ad professional how to make their awards presentations worth a Gold.

The sixth edition of Kyoorius FYIday looked at an interesting topic - "Could your Bronze have been a Gold?" in the recently held event in Mumbai. Tim Lindsay, CEO, D&AD spoke to a select audience about what makes a presentation click at the international awards. Hosted by Kyoorius, the event came right in time for the entry deadline of major awards including D&AD's own, The D&AD Awards.

According to Lindsay it is important to present one's creative work nicely at any international award, not just because it increases chances but because "the good stuff works so much better than the bad stuff - economically, socially, culturally and environmentally."

Lindsay's presentation listed the ways one could make storytelling more compelling. By keeping it crisp and short the jury's attention is likely to not waver. According to him, describing the idea and solution first, followed by the objective, context and results has its merits; as does sticking to the time limit given for the presentation.

One key ingredient for impressing the jury with your work, according to Lindsay, is to explain any cultural references that may not be easy to understand without an explanation. This is especially true when the jury is made up of different nationalities. Ensuring that the presentation film's narration is in a commonly understood language like English, is also a good idea.

The presentation was beautifully punctuated with several award winning ads, such as the Lifebuoy Roti campaign, the Van Damme Epic Split among others.

To sum it up, Tim Lindsay gave a list of ways to increase the chances of striking Gold at the awards. These included investing time and effort into the presentation, making sure the idea is new and original, telling a story and being culturally contextual.

To know more about what Tim Lindsay spoke on, click below:

D&AD is a British educational charity which promotes excellence in design and advertising. The annual D&AD awards are touted as one of the toughest awards in international advertising, where Yellow (equivalent to a Silver award) and Black Pencils (equivalent to a Gold award) are given out. The deadline for this year's entry submission is on Feb 18, 2015 and the results will be announced on April 27. The annual awards show will be held on May 21.

Kyoorius, known in India for one of the world's biggest and best curated conferences on design - the Designyatra, tied up with D&AD in May 2013 to organize the Kyoorius Awards.