RMIT students win big with ideas for women’s empowerment

Now in its first year, VYLIA is an extension of Vietnam Young Lions, one of the most prestigious national competitions for young talent in marketing and communications.

VYLIA 2022 selected the theme ‘Women’s Empowerment’ with the aim of raising the awareness and standards of gender equality across all areas of marketing and communications.

For this, the organisers collaborated with Goodvertisings Vietnam, a gender sensitivity campaign created by CARE International in Vietnam and Tuva Communication with sponsorship from the Australian government’s Investing in Women initiative.

Divided into a Student league and an Industry Practitioner league, the participants were asked to produce a short film (maximum 60 seconds) within 48 hours.

The brief was related to a detergent product of a well-known FMCG brand, and the requirement was to include the idea of women's empowerment in the short film.

The Gold award in the Student league went to Team TLINH consisting of RMIT students Huynh Thai Bao Tran and Nguyen Khac Hai Linh. Their video delivered the message "Don't help Mum".

“If we say that doing housework is ‘helping mum’, we unwittingly imply that housework is women’s work and we are just reinforcing the stereotype. By subtly criticising the norm of helping mums with household chores in daily conversations, we shed a light on the unconscious gender bias that still falls on working mothers' shoulders,” Huynh Thai Bao Tran said.

“Our video encourages dads and sons not to ‘help’ but share the load with mums, since housework is every family member's responsibility.”

VYLIA attracted 70 student teams and 30 industry practitioner teams. Of note is the impressive statistic that nine out of the ten members making up the student finalist teams came from RMIT University Vietnam.

Dr Farida Kbar, Senior Program Manager for Professional Communication at RMIT Vietnam, said: “Our students’ excellent performance once again proves our strength in creativity. Through these kinds of competitions, we encourage our students to make a positive impact on our community, with the UN Sustainable Development Goals as the focus.”

The Gold winners in both leagues will get the chance to attend Spikes Asia (widely considered the most prestigious creative festival in Asia Pacific) as delegates in February 2023. One idea from the final round will be selected by the end of this month to be executed in real life.

When asked what he’s most excited to experience at Spikes Asia, RMIT student Nguyen Khac Hai Linh said: “As the famous advertising executive Dan Wieden put it, ‘we’ll walk in stupid’. We’ll walk in with open minds as if we know nothing and are hungry to learn, because at Spikes Asia we’re meeting the real movers and shakers of the industry. They will surely have a ton to share if we show drive, ambition, and curiosity. So, that’s what we’ll do – walk in stupid.”

Story: Ngoc Hoang