News Ltd launches Young Lions competition with new format
News Limited has launched this year’s Young Lions competition as part of the annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival to be held on the French Riviera in June.
Those deemed to be the best young advertising and media talents in the country will go in to compete against other national representatives in the worldwide Young Lions Competition.
Changes to the rules this year will follow a first and second round format across the media, print and cyber categories.
It is the third year News Limited has been associated with the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival as the official Australian representative.
During my afternoon nap I had the strangest dream I was a fly on the wall of News Ltd’s boardroom, where a meeting was taking place about the 2010 News Ltd Young Lions competition.
It’s a little hazy, but this is the little dialogue I can recall from it …
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Garth: My first suggestion for what should be briefed in the media category, is a trade brief that asks entrants to find a way to get their colleagues thinking more about the News Ltd brand. Actually, that’s my only suggestion.
Garth’s colleague: Didn’t we do that last year?
Garth: Yes, though last year was about The Australian newspaper. This year, it’s about various sections of other News Ltd newspapers. We thought we’d give them something new and interesting this year.
Garth’s colleague: That’s not new at all; we’re essentially asking them to do the same thing. And that’s not interesting to them, it’s interesting to us. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the aim to identify the hottest upcoming talent to best represent Australia in the worldwide Young Lions competition?
Garth: Yes, and with my idea we would achieve just that.
Garth’s colleague: But if we really want to inspire bright young Australians to demonstrate their strategic skills, should we not be giving them a new challenge? Perhaps something that deals with an issue that’s not our own this time, and something that’s more interesting to them?
Garth: We all know the newspaper model is in real trouble and the way I see it, one way to help counteract that is to bring in more ad revenue, so that we can afford to inject the resources we need to improve the quality of our product.
Garth’s colleague: And how is this exercise going to earn us more revenue?
Garth: Well, these kids might give us some ideas we really need to engage their colleagues a little better. I don’t know about you, but again I came nowhere near making my calls target last week.
Garth’s colleague: Me too, but isn’t it blatantly obvious what we’re doing here? And does that not make us look even more desperate? We’re milking this competition for what we can get! Off kids!!
Garth: Hey, we’re the ones holding the ticket to Cannes, not them. And in any case, even if we don’t get any good ideas, well at least we’ve got hopefully 50 entrants thinking about us more. I’m inclined to think that the more they think about us, the more likely they’ll think about including us on their plans.
Garth’s colleague: Hey, I don’t see The Australian pulling in any more dosh since last year’s competition.
Garth: Touché. But we’re still going ahead with it.
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Of course, that’s not how the conversation would have gone down in reality. Nobody in that boardroom would have disagreed with Garth.