Themed "colorful Yunnan, home of a dream", the First Creative Yunnan Advertising Contest started in Kunming, capital of South China's Yunnan province, on March 13. A joint initiative of the Yunnan Provincial Administration of Industry and Commerce, Yunnan Advertising Association and Yunnan Tourism Development Committee, the contest was organized by Kunming's Advertising Industry Park.

This advertising contest is open to the public throughout China from this March until August. It seeks to discover creativity with a "Yunnan element" and to showcase the unique Yunnan culture, including folk culture, tourism culture and surrounding cultural products, through advertising. The event will also work to promote tourism and advertising development and to improve Yunnan’s popularity in the world.

In addition, the contest's organizing committee was working together with the 12th AD Campus - an initiative of the China Advertising Association that targets students of universities and colleges and is recognized as a platform for up and coming talent in the field of advertising - to encourage creativity from 500,000 students in the country's 1,118 universities and colleges. Based on their cooperation, a speaking tour about the contest will be organized in tandem with AD Campus in six cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Entries for the contest can be presented in various forms – both traditional, like print and television advertisements, and new forms like microfilms. Inspired by the "Yunnan element", the contestants are free to choose from five perspectives, including Yunnan brands, Yunnan specialty products and Yunnan tourism ideas.

According to the contest's agenda, it will invite well-known experts in the fields of advertising and creativity to judge the works after the first round, and follow with a "creative Yunnan" summit and an awards ceremony, while the Kunming Advertising Industry Park will provide a policy and public service platform for the distinguished teams specializing in the exploitation of Yunnan tourism and ethnic groups’ folk culture creativity.

Kunming Advertising Industry Park, organizer of the contest, was listed as one of the 29 national pilot parks for the advertising industry. The First Creative Yunnan Advertising Contest was the first such event that was organized by the park with an intention to tap tourism and ethnic groups' folk cultures. Not only with a view to attracting more attention from creative organizations and professionals to Yunnan and the "Yunnan element", the park is positioning itself as an incubator and base for the ethnic minorities’ folk and tourism culture creativity.