dentsu’s Young Innovators Workshop Crowns 2025 Champions

Lucy Lim from New Zealand and Sayo Aketagawa from Japan have won dentsu's Young Innovators Workshop.

Last week the Dentsu Creative Council – CCOs and creative leaders from around the global network - met in Singapore. They were joined by 12 talented team members from across APAC, with representatives from New Zealand, India, Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore, to take part in dentsu's Young Innovators Workshop.

Lucy Lim, a junior art director from Dentsu Creative Aotearoa was partnered with Sayo Aketagawa, an experience designer and copywriter from dentsu Tokyo. The two formed team “Chopsticks”, representing their cultural backgrounds and specialties of art and writing coming together.

They were faced with a live client brief for one of dentsu’s current clients, focused on instilling positive oral health habits in younger generations. Participants then presented their best idea to the Dentsu Creative council. Lucy and Sayo's detailed concept and presentation, incorporating gamification and reward systems, habit formation and sustainability stood out to judges for its bold and innovative thinking.

Reflecting on the week's collaborations and winning pitch, Yasu Sasaki, dentsu's global chief creative officer, remarked, "There are always exciting discoveries in the presentations of the Young Innovators. Not only because of the passion of the participants, but also because we were able to see innovation happen as a result of the encounter between two people from different countries and regions who had only just met, and who had very different talents and ways of thinking. The winning team really grasped the insights of the target people and presented an idea that was really out of the box. It was a platform with so much potential that ideas just kept coming from the CCOs from around the world who were on the judging panel. I can't wait to see the ideas of the two winners come to life."