UK Young Lions Winners: Film

Our UK Young Lions competition this year was based around our diversity and inclusion initiative, We want UK advertising to be the creative industries’ most progressive sector in recruiting, retaining and developing the most inclusive workforce. Our Young Lions in this category were asked to create a 60 second film to build awareness for the initiative. You can see the full competition brief here.

Augustine Cerf and Lauren Peters of AMV BBDO were the winners for the Film competition with their ‘That’s Advertising’ advert which the judges loved for its simplicity focus on the positives rather than negatives. Unfortunately the winning work is unavailable to view at the moment, we will let you know if this changes.

Augustine Cerf, Creative (Copywriter) and Lauren Peters, Creative (Art Director), AMV BBDO

We crossed paths as tweens at flute camp, and were reunited later at ad school. (We’re pleased to note that our decision at attend flute camo as speckled tweens has now been vindicated by Lizzo).

Now we work for AMV. We (naively, or not) believe in leveraging brand’s power to change things for the better.

We also make podcasts. We’ve just launched The Walkers Switch, a true crime podcasts about whether Walkers switched their colours of their crisps and then covered it up. Critics are already calling it ‘the Serial of the crisp world’. Fest your ears.

Lauren draws naked people, levitates with OAPS at acro-yoga, and attempts to make her own clothes using a sewing machine she bagged off a shoot. Augustine loves microwave soups, is  trying to write a novel about diet culture and endometriosis, makes plentiful boob pots and likes to make the spurious claim she’s a potter first, advertiser second.

What does it mean to you to be representing the UK at Cannes Lions 2021?

WE. ARE. GIDDY

Its an honour to be representing our proud nation, even if it does happen on Zoom this year.

We loved the challenge of making something with such a quick turnaround, and look forward to doing it all over again. Praise be.

This year, the runners up of the Film competition were Matt Nicholas and Nick Archer of Sky Creative Agency. The judges loved the emotional impact that their ad had. Watch it here.

Matt Nicholas, Creative, Sky Creative Media

After several years working in recording studios and filmmaking on the side I had the eureka moment and realised advertising combines the two! Currently working with great content and arguing with Nick at Sky Creative Agency.

Nick Archer, Creative, Sky Creative Agency

After failing my grade 8 kazoo exam mum suggested I should try something else, so I got myself onto a film degree, realised I didn’t have the attention span for feature films, so I started making ads at Ogilvy. Currently working with some of the world’s best content at Sky.

How was your experience in taking part in the UK Young Lions Film competition?

The brief for the Young Lions was to ‘encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to consider a career in advertising’. It seemed a particularly broad brief – there are, unfortunately, several groups that are under-represented in our industry and there are so many advertising jobs we could talk about.

To make sure our ad had a clear message we chose to focus on one woman’s story of ‘making it’ in the ad-world as a commercials director. It wasn’t the sort of job or industry some people expected our character to enter and our ad shows that these put-downs she faced while choosing this career. We wanted to show that these put-downs have no truth in the advertising industry and inspire viewers to make their own decisions about their future regardless of challenges they might face.

To make sure our ad was accessible we used on-screen text throughout. We shot the ad in Matt’s parents garden as Matt’s Mum is a sign language interpreter – Liz (Matt’s Mum) kindly stayed to make sure our signing was clear and will be properly understood by deaf viewers.

This year, the judges also highly commended Tudor Feraru and Mark Wilson of 1000heads. Watch their ad here.

Tudor Feraru, Senior Creative, 1000heads

Tudor is a Senior Creative, heading up the ideation function at 100heads London and working on brands such as Napapijri, The North Face and Google. Copywriter by trade, he has a soft spot for film and (ever) emerging digital platforms. Like most Eastern Europeans, he enjoys football, philosophy and wearing tracksuit tops. Ideally at the same time.

Mark Wilson, Senior Creative, 1000heads

Mark is a Senior Creative at 1000heads London, making for the likes of The North Face, Wella and Napapijri.
Practically – he makes campaigns, animations and digital experiences.
Poetically – he uses aesthetics to create little pieces of culture.

How was your experience in the UK Young Lions Film competition?

We’ve had a fun weekend working on this.
Our approach to the brief was all in or nothing, so we hope you either loved it or hated it.