In a few short weeks, representatives from the world’s top agencies will descend on the south of France for the 64th Annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. In an effort to part of the action, 100 young creatives from across the globe went head-to-head in the inaugural Young Lions Bumper Hack to compete for two coveted spots to this year’s festival, and an opportunity to go on to compete in the Young Lions Film Competition.
This wasn’t any ordinary hack; the brief challenged the next generation of creative talent to tell a story to their future selves. But there was a twist. They had to tell this larger-than-life story using a bite-sized format, YouTube’s :06 bumper ad format. Each entry had to include three :06 films to bring their ideas to life.
YouTube introduced the :06 format last year to help advertisers capture attention in today’s mobile world. Bumpers have shown significant impact when it comes to brand metrics like ad recall1, but creatives wanted to put it to the test to see if six seconds could indeed tell meaningful and emotional stories. So we asked creatives and filmmakers to create for the format at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, and they illustrated that bumpers were an untapped creative canvas.
But it was time to give the young guns a crack at it. The Cannes Lions jury carefully reviewed the submissions, which included a wide variety of creative interpretations of the brief, furthering the notion that six seconds is limitless when it comes to storytelling. However, the 2 sets of films that stood out to the jury offered sage advice to the future creatives these youngsters aspire to be. “For me, the best ones were from the creatives who shared a message that extrapolates their own ego, but draws attention to something bigger like giving value to people and the planet, for example,” said Yuri Mussoly, one of the jury members and Digital Creative Director at Africa. “For me, this is the future of advertising.”
That theme was clear throughout the films from Vittorio Perotti of Italy, which were a simple testament to not forget important values as his career progresses. The films, appropriately named “Slap Yourself Now,” highlight the importance of relationships, career and ethics and the necessity to not forget one’s values regardless of success. Perotti explained that “the brief made me think about what I want to be in the future and what I should not forget. I'm afraid to lose some important values in life because people often ignore them when they grow up. If I did the same, I would slap myself.”
"Slap Yourself Now" by Vittorio Perotti, Designer & Art Director, Sagmeister & Walsh, Italy
The submission from Lance Francisco of the Philippines played on the daily demands that creatives are often faced with and flipped them into a positive mantra to remind him why he set out to be a creative in the first place. “By unlearning these learnings, we can get back to the core of creating again,” said Francisco. And going back to basics is exactly what creating for 6 seconds challenged the young creative to do. “Six seconds forces you to be strikingly simple. It is just enough time for you to give out a clear message and forces you to find a clever way to communicate the message.”
"Untitled" by Lance Christoper C. Francisco, Art Director, Publicis Jimenezbasic, Philippines
“The two winners stood out for avoiding clichés and for delivering on the brief with punchy typographically driven pieces,” said Chris Clarke, Young Lions juror and Deputy Creative Officer at The Guardian. Perotti and Francisco will will get to heed their advice at Cannes Lions this year as they compete as a team in the Young Lions Film Competition. The winning Bumper Hack films, along with many of the other submissions will be featured at the YouTube Beach during the Festival.
While Perotti’s and Francisco’s films took the grand prize, all of the submissions showed the breadth of creativity that six seconds can offer. Take a look at a few other favorites as we applaud these young creatives and their approach to bite-sized creativity.
"Duck" by Ashley Wilding, Copywriter, CHE Proximity Sydney, Australia
“Brevity Can Stir Your Imagination” by Yukina Oshibe, I&S BBDO, Japan
"Start Today" by Tristan Viney, Copywriter & Seamus Fagan, Art Director, Ogilvy, Australia
As the world gravitates toward mobile content, creatives will be challenged with telling big stories through condensed formats. The creative revolution has only just begun; who’s in?
Posted by Noël Paasch, Marketing Manager, Agency Marketing, YouTube
1 In a study of over 600 campaigns, 9 in 10 bumper ads measured globally drove a significant increase in ad recall. Across all campaigns measured, average increase was 38%. (Source: YouTube Internal Data, Global, July 2016)↩