Pride of Young Lions fails to roar

Originally published in Communicate, June 2009

Last month Communicate was invited to be among the 40 or so judges of the Cannes Young Lions competition in Dubai. The contest pitted teams of young creatives against one another to see who would win the chance to go and represent the UAE in Cannes this month.

Each year the competition picks a charity and the ads are created – in nine hours – against that noble cause’s brief. This year, the client was the UAE Make a Wish Foundation. The foundation grants wishes to seriously ill children between the ages of three and 18, and the brief was simply to raise brand awareness.

Some of the work on display looked like it could have been put together by those children. If their dying wish had been to work at an advertising agency, this might have been what they produced. It might have been quite impressive if the young creatives behind it were, say, at school. But they’re not; they are working at agencies. And not as interns, either; as fully paid-up members of staff. Read the rest of this entry »