The Australian team selected to represent the country in the Young Lions Media Competition for creative talent at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, have won the prestigious award.

Lauren Cassar and Tristan Burrell from Universal McCann beat out teams from Belarus and the US, who came second and third respectively.

This year’s brief, disclosed to competitors on 2 June, was set by UN organisation, the World Food Programme. The brief to the 24 competing teams focused on increasing the number of children the WFP feeds in school from 22 million to 59 million.

The teams, whose entrants were required to be under 30 years of age, had 24 hours to interpret the brief and develop a media campaign.

“We cannot believe we won! We want to create a movement that can abolish the penny and we hope our campaign can help achieve this,” said Cassar and Burrell.

The Young Lions Competition is designed to catapult the careers of rising stars that are set to redefine the future use of images in advertising.

“We looked for an entry that demonstrated something different, fresh and that would create a movement,” explained competition judge Monica Gadsby, chief executive officer of SMG Multicultural Chicago.