Fairfax Media has announced the launch of the 2010 Fairfax Media Cannes Young Lions competition, which will give four of New Zealand’s top advertising talents the chance to compete at this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival.
The competition, which Fairfax didn’t run last year due to the difficult economic climate, is open to all young professionals at the start of their careers in the media and advertising industry and is divided into two categories: a Young Lions Media competition, which is open to agency media planners and agency media buyers, and a Young Lions Cyber competition, which is open to copywriters and web designers.
The two winning teams will be flown to France in June courtesy of Fairfax Media and receive full registration at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, the largest and most prestigious advertising festival in the world, where they will compete on the world stage in the Young Lions Media and Cyber competitions respectively.
The winners will also have the opportunity to hear presentations from the best advertising minds in the world with the winning Young Lions creative team attending creative workshops and the Young Lions media team attending media conference sessions.
Fairfax Media group sales and marketing manager Sandra King says Fairfax prides itself on its significant support of, and commitment to, the New Zealand advertising industry. And, as part of that commitment, it is once again offering four up and coming advertising folk the chance to go to Cannes (this is the fifth year Fairfax Media has run the competition).
“This is a unique opportunity that will not only expose the winning teams to some of the greatest advertising minds in the world, but will also offer the agencies that they are representing some fantastic global exposure,” she says.
Josh Lancaster, creative partner at Josh & Jamie and winner of the Fairfax Media Young Lion award in 2005, strongly urges people to do whatever they can to win this competition.
“Nothing else provides emerging creative talent with the opportunity to take on the rest of the world at a festival as prestigious as the Cannes Lions. The experience was invaluable to me. As a Young Lions delegate I was exposed to a mass of world-class work in TV, radio, print, Interactive and everything in between. Every one of those ads was worthy of a quiet pause and an envious ‘Man, that’s good!’ And I would like to acknowledge Fairfax’s enduring support of young creative talent in New Zealand, providing a platform where we can take on the world. Go New Zealand!”
Full information and entry forms are available at www.stuff.co.nz/younglions. Entries close at 5pm on Friday, 16 April 2010 and entry is open to young professionals working in the industry who are 28-years-old or under at the time of the festival.
The winning teams will be announced on Tuesday, 4 May 2010 at Fairfax Media’s Viaduct office in Auckland.
