Saatchi & Saatchi Australia, Clemenger BBDO Sydney and Thinkerbell recognised in Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards
The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards have just been announced, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality.
Saatchi & Saatchi Australia and Clemenger BBDO Sydney have been named finalists, whilst Thinkerbell has received an Honourable Mention.
Saatchi & Saatchi Australia was named a finalist in the Best World Changing Idea APAC category and an honorable mention in the Advertising, Art & Design, and General Excellence categories for The Royal Australian Mint’s ‘Donation Dollar’.
‘Losing Lena’ is a compelling film and campaign developed for Code Like a Girl by Clemenger BBDO Sydney, FINCH, Facebook and Kamber, that asks us to help remove one image to make millions of women feel welcome in tech.
Thinkerbell’s HM was for Bega ‘The Purple Hive Project’ in the AI and Data category, awarded for projects that harness the power of data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence to understand the world and empower change.
Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists, and more than 800 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, AI & Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. Plus, several new categories were added, including Pandemic Response, Urban Design, and Architecture. The 2021 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Brazil to Denmark to Vietnam.
Showcasing some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling exigent global challenges, Fast Company’s Summer 2021 issue (on newsstands May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink, thanks to carbon-eating concrete; 3D-printed schools; an at-home COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.
Says Brendan Willenberg and Darren Wright, executive creative directors Clemenger BBDO Sydney: “We are thrilled to be recognised on the world stage by Fast Company for this most important piece of work. If we want a better, more diverse world, many more talented women are needed in technology. We hope the story of Lena continues to be a catalyst for positive change, and are honoured to be included among this year’s World Changing Ideas.”
Says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company: “There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems. Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”

16 Comments
Ive seen several australian ideas as finalists in these awards (donation dollar etc)
So after two minutes of watching the Losing Lena video, I was like ok, solid insight. Ok, they now want to retire the Lena image. Cool, let’s see how they do it.
By linking to an online petition!? Are you kidding me?
What a slap in the face.
More style over substance from Clems it seems.
I mean dozens and dozens of educational institutions and tech companies have stopped using the image AND off the back of the campaign the original Lena image was just sold as an NFT for US$250,000 ensuring that Lena has FINALLY been paid for her image being used a billion times but sure… it was just a petition
ahem
so many dudes worked on this campaign
@ Shame… Time to change that lens prescription. Looks like most of production was female with a fair amount on agency side too.
Men=bad.
Got it.
Assuming the lads at Clems Sydney PRd this. Yes advertising is one category within the World Changing Ideas from Fast Company, but it’s not the only one. There’s 4 Australian ideas featured Losing Lena, Donation Dollar, Purple Hive Project and Kiwirous.
Congrats Brendan and Darren.
no, shameless awards grabbing=bad
I used to work at Clems and I know this idea took a few years to get up, although I didn’t work on it myself. Whether you like the doco or not, you have to credit it for helping shine a light on the gender imbalance issue in tech. It’s a sweet idea and I wish I worked on it.
Strong
Makes me want to fall asleep
Let the PR end
It’s over surely
I’m falling asleep…
Men who think this is over the top still stumped as to why women don’t want to work in advertising and tech.
Yes, because online advertising petitions change the world.
Work created to win awards that still does good, still does good.
Work that doesn’t win awards that still does good, still does good.
@Shame, it’s a shame that you’ve become so cynical. Perhaps instead of donating comments of no value, you could give a donation dollar.
So is purple hive actually a thing?