On this episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, speaks with Canadians Zoë Boudreau, Associate Creative Director of Design, and Jesse Shaw, Senior Motion Designer, both from Rethink, about winning Canada's first Young Lions Design Competition gold at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. They reveal how a challenging 24-hour brief on Indian comic book history—completely outside their expertise—pushed them to implement integrated speech bubbles and motion systems that no other team explored. Hear how their complementary skills, iterative approach, and ability to maintain humour under extreme pressure turned unfamiliar constraints into gold-winning creativity. See their Young Lion gold-winning work here.

00:00:01 :18 - 00:00:22 :01
Presenter
Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:22 :03 - 00:00:48 :05
Alison
Welcome back to CMA Connect. Today we're bringing you a truly special conversation straight from the heart of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Every year, the Young Lions competition challenges the brightest emerging talent from around the world, really pushing them to innovate under incredible pressure. This year, on the last day of what was already a very inspiring week, Canada truly shone on that global stage.

00:00:48 :07 - 00:01:09 :03
Alison
So I am thrilled to be joined today by the talented young Canadian creative team, Zoe Boudreau, an associate Creative Director of Design, and Jesse Shaw, a senior motion designer who not only competed but brought home the coveted Gold Lion for design. So I don't normally do a standing ovation in the beginning of a podcast, but guys, you totally deserve a standing ovation.

00:01:09 :03 - 00:01:12 :07
Alison
So super well done.

00:01:12 :09 - 00:01:13 :11
Jesse
Thank you so much.

00:01:13 :13 - 00:01:14 :07
Zoe
Thank you.

00:01:14 :12 - 00:01:35 :11
Alison
Now this incredible achievement really is a testament to your vision, certainly a testament to your hard work. It also highlights the important role of The Globe and Mail, a Canadian Marketing Association member, who champion and lead the Canadian Young Lions competition here in Canada and are really playing an important role for helping foster the next generation of creative leaders right here at home.

00:01:35 :17 - 00:01:46 :08
Alison
So to all our listeners, get ready to be inspired as we hear directly from Canada's winning team about their journey to gold. Zoe and Jesse. Huge welcome to the CMA Connect podcast. 

Zoe
Thank you.

00:01:46 :12 - 00:01:47 :17
Jesse
Thank you so much.

00:01:47 :19 - 00:01:56 :15
Alison
The first question I'm going to ask is, who was the first person you reached out to back home once you found out you'd want? Zoe, do you want to go first?

00:01:56 :17 - 00:02:10 :19
Zoe
Ooh. Honestly, I think it was probably my boyfriend. I think was the first one, but he was dead asleep, so he did not find out until the morning. But that was definitely the first person I texted. that night.

00:02:10 :19 - 00:02:15 :11
Alison
That nine hour time zone wouldn't have worked to your advantage on that one, coming from Kelowna. And Jesse, what about you?

00:02:15 :16 - 00:02:41 :05
Jesse
Yeah. It was. I mean, I'd like to say it was my wife, but, no, it was my mom because she texted me, like, five minutes after we won. Like, trying to act really  casual like she hadn't been awake all night. Saying, like, oh, have you heard anything? So I FaceTimed or just with the, with the award, and it was fun watching her, like, recognize in real time what she was reading, because I think it was exactly, it was like one in the morning or something.

00:02:41 :05 - 00:02:45 :21
Alison
So I think your wife is can understand that. 

00:02:45 :23 - 00:02:52 :18
Jesse
Yeah, she, she, she woke up to the message and she seemed pretty excited when, when she found out. But yeah.

00:02:52 :20 - 00:03:17 :13
Alison
That is very cool. Well, needless to say, taking home a Gold Lion in design at Cannes is a monumental achievement, especially in the Young Lions competition, which has a very intense 24-hour brief. So huge congratulations, and I'd love you to walk me through the initial moments when you first saw the brief through to coming up with the award winning idea and executing it under such an incredibly tight time constraints.

00:03:17 :14 - 00:03:19 :11
Alison
So who wants to kick it off?

00:03:19 :12 - 00:03:40 :08
Zoe
Yeah, I can kick off like the brief aspect. We were in the this area. We were like eating, because we knew that was something we needed to do before getting into the competition. And we got briefed at 4:00 , but we got the briefs sent to us, I think it was at 3:30 . Yeah. And we forgot about that, that it was going to be sent to us.

00:03:40 :08 - 00:04:07 :14
Zoe
So as we were eating, it got sent through our email and we're like, the brief! We should probably read this. And we really were like, honestly, I was kind of like surprised or like, really like, scared of the brief. The brief was really tricky. And I think that Jesse and I were just talking about it, and my face was like, oh no, this is like a really hard brief.

00:04:07 :14 - 00:04:29 :00
Zoe
But we got some really good advice from one of our other Canadian Young Lions saying that if it's a hard breathe, it's actually a huge opportunity because everyone's going to see it as a hard brief. So you can just like go hard. If that's the case. So that was pretty intense at the the up front because we were like, oh, this is actually going to be like an all-nighter.

00:04:29 :01 - 00:04:49 :01
Jesse
Yeah I think yeah. So I think it's called the solarium, like the cafe, and you know, really the memory is just having, you know, the, the hot sun just beating down on us and really thinking like, okay, this is, yeah. This isn't going to be fun. This is, this is not going to be a cakewalk.

00:04:49 :03 - 00:05:11 :20
Jesse
And I think kind of recognizing like in that moment. Yeah. That, you know, we got in here representing Canada and that it wasn't going to get to trust that we were here on our own merit. But, you know, you see something like a brief as maybe outside of our boundaries as it was. And yeah, kind of recognizing that we're going to need to dig deep.

00:05:11 :22 - 00:05:31 :22
Jesse
You know, it's it's fun talking about it now, but I was definitely texting a few people, right when we got it. You can definitely see that the decline in like, sanity and just the stress really flow out. So I just want to, I just want to say I appreciate it. Everyone that had to listen to me freak out online.

00:05:32 :00 - 00:05:44 :02
Alison
Well, and the, being in the solarium, something like 32 degree heat, sunshine takes the whole concept of pressure cooker to a whole other level. Now what was it about the brief that made it so tricky and challenging?

00:05:44 :04 - 00:06:21 :20
Zoe
I'd have to say that, well, the brief was making an exhibition in India on Indian comic books. But not just that. It's like the history of storytelling or visual storytelling that leads to comic books. So there were so many layers as part of the brief. And on top of that, we had to name it. And I think the naming part was the thing that we were really freaked out about because we're not copywriters by trade, but now we like to pretend that we are because we we,

00:06:21 :22 - 00:06:26 :14
Zoe
I think we came up with a pretty sick name. Yeah. Go ahead. Jesse.

00:06:26 :16 - 00:06:27 :00
Jesse
Oh, no, no.

00:06:27 :03 - 00:06:54 :11
Jesse
No, I mean, it's it's exactly that I think in the Canadian for the Canadian portion of the Young Lions competition, the brief was around a biking event. That was something like a lot of, you know, experience with attending bike events. It was a space that I was really comfortable and interested in. So we kind of felt, you know, leading into that, that maybe we got lucky or that, you know, the things just sort of aligned for us to really hit the ground running there.

00:06:54 :13 - 00:07:23 :06
Jesse
And that just wasn't the case. You know, unfortunately, just recognizing our own paths that just didn't have a ton of cultural touch points to the history of sequential storytelling in India, so that this wasn't going to be something that we just luck into. It was going to be a lot of work. But definitely, you know, on the other side of that, realizing that it was, you know, a super cool and just feel super fortunate for having that opportunity to learn about the space because that was something that we had no idea about going into it.

00:07:23 :06 - 00:07:31 :16
Jesse
And on the other side now, it's something that I think during the presentation portion, we were like genuinely enth