Yahoo's annual talent program has culminated with a pitch-off event for the Australian charity, Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD), challenging the program's 30 delegates from across the media and advertising industry in Australia and Singapore with a brief to ‘Make MMAD famous’.

Delegates were asked to use the tools and techniques they learned over the two-day course, which saw them attend workshops on AI, product design, real-world strategy, earning attention, and speaking to the CFO. These workshops were run by industry leaders including Simone Gupta, Tim Sharp, Rob Campbell, Kathryn Williams, and Alyse Behringer. The judging panel comprised Campbell, Behringer, Sharp, Dominic Brook, John McNerney, Natalie Stanbury, and Stephen Hunt.

The winning team, Guerres des Étoiles, comprised Charlotte Delay from Spark Foundry, Daniel Miller from Kaimera, and Tate Boden from Initiative. They proposed an Australia-wide MMAD bus tour to educate youth about mental health through music. The prize includes flights, 4-nights’ accommodation, and tickets to a destination marketing conference in June 2024.

"The past two days have been immensely rewarding. The diversity and expertise of the speakers was inspiring and I have learnt so much that has made me think in new ways about what I do which I look forward to sharing with my team at work and our clients. Winning the pitch-off was the icing on the cake. Our strategy was straightforward - fulfil MMAD's goal of engaging hard-to-reach communities by meeting them where they are - which led to the creation of the MMAD Bus, designed to tour rural communities and show up for them in person and in an impactful way," said Senior Executive at Spark Foundry, Charlotte Delay.

Other teams, including Flying Economy, Pitch Fit, and MAC Pack, also received honourable mentions for their strong approaches to the brief.

"These two days have been an immersive foray into topics that not only stretch the delegates' immediate workplace thinking but play into creating really impactful solutions for our incredibly challenging brief. We've designed the Academy to offer something valuable for everyone, with a focus on encouraging strategic thinking, practically implementing cutting-edge tools and finding new approaches to solve business problems. It's something we know will enhance the way our participants approach their roles going forward and add real value across the board," said Managing Director of Yahoo AUSEA, John McNerney.

"Yahoo Academy brought together a bunch of legendary emerging industry leaders who are out to change the world. Sharing the last couple of days with them has been really inspiring, and the fact we have an actionable winning idea to take MMAD to regional Australia in an impactful way is just brilliant. It really hit the right note when it came to aligning with MMAD’s mission," said Co-Founder of MMAD, Dominic Brook.

Companies involved in this year’s Yahoo Academy included CPXi Asia, Endeavour Group, Essence Mediacom, GroupM Nexus, Half Dome, Initiative, iProspect, JCDecaux Australia, Kaimera, Kinesso, Mindshare, News Corp Australia, OMD, PHD Media, Publicis, Qantas Loyalty, Slingshot Media, Spark Foundry, Starcom, The Speed Agency, Them Advertising, UM, Zenith, and Zenith Media Brisbane.