My role: Creative strategy, ideation, creative direction, and copywriting
Young Lions is an annual competition held by Cannes Lions for under-30s in the advertising industry. After winning first place in the Print category in 2019, I couldn't stay away. This year's brief was from Creative Ladder, a non-profit aiming to close the “awareness gap” in the creative marketing and advertising industry. Our response was a campaign titled Make Ads, which landed us in the USA finals where we presented to a panel of industry experts and placed Top 5.
Campaign Summary
Let’s get GenZ to stop skipping ads and start making ads. The advertising and marketing industries offer many rewarding opportunities, but a lot of 16–21-year-olds aren’t aware that these career paths even exist. To shrink this awareness gap, Creative Ladder is teaming up with industry-leading creatives to tell the stories behind ad campaigns that GenZ encounters every day online. After getting a closer look at the creative industry, we’ll help Zs discover their own career possibilities with the Creative Ladder Quiz.
Insight
Gen Z might not know about advertising and marketing jobs, but they’re certainly familiar with the industry’s work. Ninety-six percent (96%!) of Gen Z users have a YouTube account where they – like everyone – are bombarded with pre-roll ads. These ads are seen as a nuisance, standing between them and their makeup tutorials and ASMR roleplays. In fact, the most popular CTA on YouTube might be “Skip ads” – 84% of mobile users click it as soon as its available.
So what if we co-opted that habitual behavior to introduce Gen Z to a world of creative career opportunities?
Solution
Creative Ladder will introduce Gen Z to the jobs – and people – behind popular ad campaigns. Partnering with top-tier creative teams, we’ll create in-depth content that explores each of their roles in the campaign. We’ll prominently feature women, POC, and LGBTQ+ people on each project to highlight that diversity is celebrated and needed in this industry.
To get Gen Z to discover this content, we’ll place a “Make Ads” CTA right below the usual “Skip Ads” button on our partners’ pre-roll ads. Instead of totally blowing past the ad, “Make Ads” will let users see the creativity, passion, and talent that went into making that campaign. After a healthy dose of inspiration, users can take the Creative Ladder Quiz and begin their own creative career journey. And the best part? Moving forward, users won’t see ads as obstacles, but as reminders of the opportunities waiting for them.
To get Gen Z to discover this content, we’ll place a “Make Ads” CTA right below the usual “Skip Ads” button on our partners’ pre-roll ads. Instead of totally blowing past the ad, “Make Ads” will let users see the creativity, passion, and talent that went into making that campaign. After a healthy dose of inspiration, users can take the Creative Ladder Quiz and begin their own creative career journey. And the best part? Moving forward, users won’t see ads as obstacles, but as reminders of the opportunities waiting for them.
How It’s All Gonna Work
1. We’ll disrupt the instinctive action of skipping an ad by placing another button in the same area: Make Ads. We’ll partner with a popular agencies and brands, like McDonalds, to introduce a new CTA that sits directly next to the Skip Ads button.
2. “Make Ads” will take users to a landing page where they can see how the ad they were just watching come to life. They’ll learn about different roles on the project and what kind of skills each team member brought to the table. Users can also explore other creative teams’ stories, roles, and the inspiring ad campaigns that they created. The goal here is to show students that no matter what their passion is, there’s a place for them in the creative field.
3. After seeing how the pros work, users can start their own creative journey by taking the Creative Ladder Quiz.
4. Users can then share their results online and tag their friends to take the quiz as well. GenZ will take to TikTok, YouTube, and other social platforms to talk about career opportunities, and share the knowledge they’ve gained from resources like Creative Ladder and the connections they make through the mentor network.
Conclusion
The superpower of this campaign is that it makes every ad and every "skip ad" button a reminder of these creative opportunities. It can make a student pause, and think about the people, the work, and the passion behind that ad. If we can change the way students think about the advertising that they see every day, that’s transformative. That could close the awareness gap.
