Les Mills and CureKids partnered with Media Design School students in New Zealand to create 'Stacking the Odds', a 2017 Fight Night film reframing charity as
How Les Mills Fight Night Became a Platform for CureKids Research
'Stacking the Odds' is a 2017 New Zealand public interest film created by Media Design School students for CureKids and Les Mills, using the visual metaphor of coins placed inside boxing gloves to argue that donations fund childhood medical research rather than individual families, tying the message directly to the Les Mills Ringside Fight Night event held on Friday 13 October 2017.
The campaign's central proposition is deliberately structural. CureKids does not direct donations to children or their families — it channels funding into research that can improve the lives of thousands of children over time. As reported by StopPress, creative director Kate Humphries described the winning student script as one that unashamedly placed the call for money at the very heart of the idea, with the inference that Fight Night fighters are using coins to fix the fight. That framing transforms a charitable ask into an argument about systemic impact, lending the campaign a moral seriousness unusual in student work.
In New Zealand, the campaign was published in October 2017 and promoted the Les Mills Ringside Fight Night as a vehicle for CureKids fundraising. The film represents the sole media asset produced, directed by Roberto Nascimento and produced by Jonathan Potton through production company Chillbox. The campaign was submitted to Clapboard by copywriter Adam Redmond, one of the Media Design School students credited on the work. Clapboard assigns 'Stacking the Odds' a score of 57 out of 100, reflecting a competent and conceptually coherent execution with room for broader creative ambition.
Les Mills is one of New Zealand's most recognised fitness brands. The Ringside Fight Night event places non-professional participants inside a boxing training environment, combining physical challenge with community spectacle — a format that naturally attracts engaged supporters and donations. Pairing this event with CureKids, a New Zealand charity focused on funding research into childhood illness, created a ready-made narrative around fighting for a cause.
The strategic insight developed by the Media Design School team centres on a meaningful distinction: CureKids funds research, not relief. This repositions the donation not as compassion but as investment — a subtler and arguably more durable motivator for an audience of fitness-oriented participants who understand the relationship between effort and outcome. The coin-in-glove metaphor reinforces this logic visually, suggesting that every contribution tips the balance in a contest that children cannot fight alone.
The campaign also sits within a broader tradition of cause-linked sports events in the New Zealand market. As reported by StopPress, the 2016 Les Mills Fight Night campaign — created for Canteen and also produced by Media Design School students — featured volunteer fighters rehearsing trash-talking lines written by young cancer patients. That earlier execution leaned into emotional contrast; 'Stacking the Odds' pivots toward structural argument. Both approaches reflect the challenge of making fitness-based charity events feel urgent to audiences who might otherwise treat participation as personal achievement rather than public contribution. Competitors in the New Zealand charity-sports space, including events run by World Vision New Zealand and the Cancer Society of New Zealand, typically rely on direct emotional appeal, making CureKids' research-first positioning a genuine point of difference.
Roberto Nascimento directed 'Stacking the Odds'. The film was produced by Jonathan Potton through production company Chillbox, with camera operation and editing handled by Milon Tesiram. The creative team at Media Design School comprised copywriter Adam Redmond, art directors Roberto Campos Jr. and Emerson Hunt, working under creative director Kate Humphries.
The visual conceit is economical and precise. Coins — the physical currency of donations — are shown being placed inside boxing gloves before a fight. The action is quiet and deliberate, which separates it from the kinetic energy typical of boxing content. That tonal decision is load-bearing: it signals that the subject is research funding, not athletic spectacle. The glove becomes a vessel for collective contribution rather than individual force, and the implied act of stacking the odds against childhood illness is made tangible without requiring explanation.
As reported by StopPress at the time of publication in October 2017, the campaign was covered the day before the Les Mills Ringside Fight Night event, giving it a functional role as pre-event promotional content in the New Zealand market as well as a standalone public interest statement. The film runs as a single asset, which concentrates its persuasive weight into one uninterrupted argument. For a student production executed through Chillbox, the integration of concept, direction, and production discipline across a team without professional advertising experience represents the campaign's clearest creative achievement. Kate Humphries, as creative director overseeing the Media Design School brief, guided the team toward a script that prioritised the fundraising argument over sentiment — a choice that gives the film an adult quality of address.
Quantified campaign performance for 'Stacking the Odds' is limited by the nature of its production context. The film recorded 1,333 views and 5 likes on its host platform, with no public comments logged, according to Clapboard's own records. These figures reflect a narrow organic distribution consistent with a student campaign supporting a single charity event in New Zealand rather than a paid media rollout.
No verified data on donations generated, event attendance uplift, or earned media reach for 'Stacking the Odds' is publicly available beyond these platform metrics. What is documentable is the campaign's structural effectiveness. The decision to centre the film on a research-funding argument rather than an individual beneficiary story extends the potential shelf life of the message beyond the specific Fight Night date of 13 October 2017. By framing coins as the mechanism for fixing the fight against childhood illness, the creative team produced a piece of content legible to audiences with no prior knowledge of CureKids' model.
As reported by StopPress, the campaign received editorial coverage the day before the Fight Night event, establishing it as both a promotional and journalistic artefact in the New Zealand public interest space. That dual function — event promotion and charitable argument — gives the work a utility that raw view counts do not fully capture. Clapboard scores 'Stacking the Odds' at 57 out of 100, recognising its conceptual clarity and production cohesion while noting that the campaign's limited distribution scale and single-asset format constrain its overall impact rating.
'Stacking the Odds' is a 2017 New Zealand public interest film created by Media Design School students for CureKids and Les Mills. It uses coins placed inside boxing gloves as a visual metaphor for donations funding childhood medical research, tied to the Les Mills Ringside Fight Night event held on 13 October 2017.
Media Design School students created 'Stacking the Odds' in New Zealand in 2017. The team included copywriter Adam Redmond, art directors Roberto Campos Jr. and Emerson Hunt, and creative director Kate Humphries. The film was directed by Roberto Nascimento and produced by Jonathan Potton through production company Chillbox.
CureKids funds childhood medical research rather than direct family support. The campaign's strategy positioned donations as investment in long-term solutions, not individual relief. This research-first argument, set against the Les Mills Ringside Fight Night boxing event, gave the fundraising ask a structural logic unusual for charity communications in New Zealand.
According to Clapboard, the film recorded 1,333 views and 5 likes on its host platform. No verified donation or attendance data is publicly available. StopPress covered the campaign editorially the day before the Fight Night event, giving it reach beyond its organic platform metrics in the New Zealand market.
Clapboard assigns 'Stacking the Odds' a score of 57 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong conceptual clarity and cohesive production for a student team, while accounting for its limited single-asset format and narrow organic distribution within the New Zealand public interest category during the 2017 Fight Night period.
'Stacking the Odds' was the third consecutive year of Media Design School student work for the Les Mills Fight Night event, as reported by StopPress. The 2016 campaign supported Canteen and featured trash-talking lines written by young cancer patients. The partnership spanned approximately 2015 to 2017 across the New Zealand market.
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