Roll Dot Agency duo bags YOC 2026 title for their campaign ‘PauseBoards’ ‘

The excitement peaked at the 20th edition of the Out-of-Home Advertising Convention (OAC) at The Grand Hyatt, Goa, as the winners of the much-awaited Young Outdoorian Creative Contest (YOC) 2026 were officially declared. Taking home the Winner’s title were Brizel Kizzy Pinto, Creative Partner – Copy, Roll Dot Agency, and Mehar Arunika, Creative Partner – Art, Roll Dot Agency, for their campaign ‘PauseBoards’.  

As part of the prize, they won an all-expenses-paid trip to ADFEST 2027 in Pattaya, Thailand, including airfare, a three-night stay, and full festival access. 

The contest also recognised the runner-up team – Iman Sengupta, Senior Art Director and Kokila Srivastava, Associate Creative Director of HAVAS Creative, for their campaign ‘One Coffee Later’, which made them win a cash prize of Rs 50,000. Meanwhile, Manjunath Sagar G M, Media Planner, and Sree Vishnu K B, Client Servicing Executive, both from Madison World, received a special mention for their campaign ‘The Art of the Pause.’ 

Open to professionals below the age of 30, YOC is a platform created to encourage young creative talent in advertising. Participants from across the country competed in teams of two, with pairings such as Art-Copy, Art-Strategy, and Copy-Strategy. The contest began with an online briefing session on July 20 for an OOH campaign. 

The brief was presented by Preetam Patnaik, Head of Consumer Marketing, Continental Coffee, who challenged the creative minds to ‘create the world’s most beautiful reminder to pause!’ Teams had 48 hours to develop and submit their campaign ideas. The contest received 34 entries, all submitted before the July 22, 11:00 AM deadline.  

The entries were evaluated by an esteemed jury comprising some of the biggest creative professionals from the industry: 

• Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer, INTO Creative 

• Kapil Batra, President – Creative, TBWA\LINTAS 

• Geetanjali Jaiswal, Independent Creative Director 

• Kaushik Mitra, Chief Ideas Officer, Tailor India 

• Kapil Tammal, National Creative Director, Scarecrow M&C Saatchi 

• Rajat Dawar, Independent Creative Director 

• Nilay Moonje, Executive Creative Director, Sideways Consulting 

The winners were felicitated during the OOH Advertising Awards ceremony held on July 25 at The Grand Hyatt, Goa.