Inside RMIT students’ creative breakthroughs at Vietnam Young Lions 2026

Vietnam Young Lions is more than a contest for many emerging creatives, it’s a proving ground for young minds with big ideas. This year RMIT students answered that call with courage and creativity, turning pressure into growth: across multiple categories they earned top honours, including two Golds in the Film category.

RMIT students and alumni once left a strong mark at one of the country’s most competitive stages for emerging talents in the Marketing and Communication industry this year, with achievements ranging from Top Finalist placements to Bronze, Silver and Gold wins across categories.

Especially in the Film category, Team TIHI, Professional Communication students Đặng Trương Minh Hương and Huỳnh Phương Ngân, won Gold in the Student League. In the Industry Practitioner League, Team Tâm Linh, with Đan Phúc Quang Tâm, Design studies and RMIT alumni, Nguyễn Khắc Hải Linh, also took home Gold and earned the opportunity to represent Vietnam at Cannes Lions in France.

From curiosity of Film to Gold winners at Young Lions

This year’s Film category challenged participants to respond to KitKat’s brief by turning the familiar “Tách” sound, the sound of breaking a KitKat bar, into a “Do Not Disturb” signal for Gen Z. Beyond producing a film, teams had to create a vertical, playful and TikTok-native story that made the idea of taking a break feel simple, immediate and emotionally relevant.

Team TIHI, Gold winner, Film category - Student League

For Student Gold Winner, Team TIHI, the brief felt both exciting and personal. As Gen Z students, Huỳnh Phương Ngân and Đặng Trương Minh Hương understood the constant pressure of digital life, where even resting can come with guilt.

“As Gen Z, we talk about burnout and work-life balance all the time, but many of us still feel guilty when resting,” Phương Ngân shared. “So the idea of protecting your break felt surprisingly personal to me.”

With that insight in mind, Team TIHI looked for a way to show how breaks could exist within overwhelming daily routines. Their idea came from the digital tools that define student and working life. Instead of portraying stress through dramatic scenes, they used working app logos as symbols of hustle and digital noise. With one “Tách”, familiar names broke apart to reveal small moments of rest: Teams became Tea, Outlook became Out.

“We didn’t want people to feel ‘disturbed’ again by another advertisement about ‘Do Not Disturb’,” Phương Ngân said. “That’s why we tried to keep everything as simple as possible, just one ‘Tách’.”

Team TIHI presenting their idea at the Grand Finale, Young Lions 2026.

That simplicity, however, was built through an intense 48-hour process. Hương had to learn After Effects overnight, while Phương Ngân created a drawing sequence for the film’s ending. The team tested notification sounds, platform “voices” and app combinations before finding the clearest execution.

“I learned that strategy is also important in creativity,” Hương reflected. “Even a small change like a sound effect or logo can give the most direct but impactful message to the audience.”

For Phương Ngân, the journey also changed the way she saw her own creativity. With support from her teammate and RMIT lecturers, she became more confident in sharing ideas that once felt strange or silly.

“Our weird little ideas can actually be treasures,” she said.

Catching ideas in creative chaos

Team Tam Linh, Gold winner, Film category - Industry Practitioner League

While Team TIHI used “Tách” as a signal to protect personal moments of rest, Team Tâm Linh, Gold Winner of Practitioner League, approached the sound from another angle: as an invitation for everyone to pause together. Their idea turned every snap into a shared call to rest, making the simple act of breaking a KitKat feel playful, collective and contagious.

“One lion breaks a KitKat, and the whole pride takes a break.” (Một con sư tử tách KitKat, cả đàn nghỉ xả hơi) he said.

For Đan Phúc Quang Tâm, that playful idea came from a process that was anything but calm. The 48-hour challenge pushed the team through rounds of ideas, debates and last-minute decisions, forcing them to find clarity in the middle of creative chaos.

The biggest challenge, he said, was choosing an idea that was not only interesting, but also possible to execute within the time and resources available. “The 48-hour limit helped me see more clearly what we actually needed,” Tâm reflected. “Do we really need this? Will it be effective?”

That thinking shaped his broader view of creativity. For Tâm, an “out-of-the-box” idea does not appear magically. It often starts with many familiar, obvious or even cliché ideas. Creatives need to go through those first, question them, and sharpen their instincts until something more unexpected appears.

Tâm compared ideas to fish swimming beneath the surface, borrowing from one of his favourite filmmakers, David Lynch. “Ideas are like fish,” he shared. “The desire for an idea is like bait on a hook. You never know when they will come or what will trigger them, but on a lucky day, you catch one.”

Team Tam Linh presenting their idea at the Grand Finale, Young Lions 2026.

“You have to sharpen your creative instinct and listen to it,” he said. “Sometimes it only whispers an idea, and the idea passes very quickly. If you are not listening, you miss it.”

What stayed with Tâm most, however, was not only the pressure but the humour and joy that appeared along the journey. He remembered the team sitting exhausted in a café at four or five in the morning, still recording voice lines and testing small details. Those moments were stressful, but also funny and memorable.

Once you have tried enough, you start to see failure as something normal. Then your brain no longer focuses on ‘I have to win’. It starts to focus on having fun, enjoying your idea, and genuinely valuing that idea.”

As Team Tâm Linh prepares for the global stage at Cannes Lions, Tâm said he wants to bring an even sharper sense of simplicity into the next stage. “I want an idea so simple that when people see it, they feel jealous and think, ‘I could have done that, but why didn’t I think of it?,’” he shared.

Growing beyond the comfort zone

Giang (right), with her Team PROIMATE100 at Young Lions

For Ngan Giang, another student competing in the Marketer category, the journey offered another perspective on the Young Lions experience: what it means for a student to step into a professional-level competition and test her ideas in front of the industry.

As a Top 5 finalist in the Industry Practitioner League, Giang competed alongside experienced professionals from major companies while still balancing her identity as an RMIT student and Marketing intern. It was her first time joining a competition of this scale, and she described the experience as both meaningful and challenging.

“I felt a lot of pressure and nervousness,” she shared. “However, this journey pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me more confidence in myself and my abilities, especially having the opportunity to present our ideas on a big stage in front of industry experts and judges.”

For Giang, the competition was not only about the final ranking. It helped her grow personally and professionally, while preparing her for a future career in marketing.

Growing beyond the comfort zone

For Giang, the competition was not only about the final ranking. It helped her grow personally and professionally, while preparing her for a future career in marketing.

Young Lions: dream of creative youth

Together, these journeys show that Vietnam Young Lions 2026 was not only a competition about winning. It was a lesson in how young creatives learn to think under pressure, trust unusual ideas and find clarity in chaos.

“I realised the competition itself was part of the process that helped us grow and understand ourselves better,” she said. “So let yourself be surprised. And most importantly, have fun.”

For Tâm, that sense of fun is also where creativity begins. “Having fun does not always mean laughing at an idea. Sometimes fun is passion. It is the thing you keep doing, even when it is hard, because you are too curious to stop.”

Therefore, for something every student can carry beyond competitions, classrooms or creative briefs: “be stupidly curious”, he said.

That mindset was also strengthened through the support of RMIT’s creative learning environment. Tâm shared that the Creative Competition course and Young Lions workshops helped him prepare by introducing him to practical tips, industry examples and ways of thinking used by professionals, giving him more confidence to approach the competition brief.

RMIT SCD workshop geared students up to conquer Vietnam Young Lions.

Dr Soumik Parida, RMIT Associate Program Manager for the Professional Communication program, said the students’ achievements reflected not only their creativity, but also their ability to navigate uncertainty.

“What impressed me most was not the medals, but the way our students responded to uncertainty... Competitions like Young Lions simulate that reality. They challenge students to think strategically, collaborate under pressure, and trust their ideas. The results are important, but the learning that happens during those 48 hours is what ultimately prepares them for industry.”

With achievements across categories, RMIT Vietnam was named the “Most Winning University” at Vietnam Young Lions for the fifth time, reflecting both individual talent and a growing culture of creative courage.

24 June 2026

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