|
 This weekend some of the brightest (probably) young (sort of) minds will get together and compete to make advertising magic, in the UAE leg of the Young Lions Print competition, with a view to making it all the way to sunny Cannes.
The aspiring adpeople, all aged 28 or younger, will have 10 hours to fight it out to produce a worthy piece of work to see them through to the next round of the competition. Thankfully, this is one contest where controversy should be minimal, as the contestants will only get the brief at the start of the allotted time – not much time to research South American Cannes winners...
Avinash Udeshi, general manager of Motivate Val Morgan, the Young Lions’ main sponsor, said: “The teams will be briefed on the morning of the competition. The client should be a charity or public service organisation whose name, objectives, strategies and target audience remain secret until they are disclosed at the briefing session. By the evening each team has to submit two executions (print advert or poster) which is then judged to select the winners.”
All very exciting. The judging will take place next week, and winners will be announced on 13 May. Bronze and Silver winners will get certificates, while the Gold winners will be flown to and put up at Cannes for the Lions in June, courtesy of Motivate Publishing, where they will represent the UAE in the main Cannes Young Lions competition.
Previous winners of the UAE competition certainly seem to rate it as a way of getting the attention of the industry.
“Without a doubt, I suddenly sprouted a mobile spotlight,” said Sheetal Rajan, winner of two Golds in the 2007 UAE Young Lions, and now working at BPG The Big Idea, for whom she helped pick up a Silver at this year’s Dubai Lynx awards (there were other winners, you know...).
“Everyone in the advertising industry began noticing me. And they started taking interest in what I've done before and where I was heading. On a personal note, the sense of achievement and satisfaction of having done a good job is amazing. I met and exceeded the expectations I had of myself. And nothing compares to that.”
Keshav Naidu, UAE Young Lions winner in 2006 and now creative group head at Team Y&R, said: “Since [the competition] I have been nominated by the Clio awards among the top 12 global creatives under 30 in 2008, and at the local level I have been a regular winner at the Lynx awards. Within the agency, the management have since shown a lot of faith in my abilities. I now get to handle some projects on my own and have even headed a few pitch efforts.”
Best of luck to all those entering this year’s competition – we’ll bring you news of the winners as it happens.
|
