In February of 2025, my teammate Hannah Lewis and I were given the opportunity to pair up to create a print advertisement for the 2025 National Cinemedia Young Lions competition. This competition was unlike any other competition I had ever competed in. Uniquely, Cannes Young Lions allows advertising professionals under the age of 30 to pair up and complete a brief within a short period of time. Normally the pairs reflect the roles in traditional agencies where each team is one copywriter and one art director. However, filled with determination to pair up - Hannah and I decided to pair up as a double art director team and learn more about our creative copywriting skills through the process of sink or swim. After lots of long nights to the point of the office lights turning off on us, Hannah and I submitted our concept to the Lions Jury and lets just say we swam. Swam our way to New York City where we were awarded third place in our first year competing. I would like to first thank Hannah for being my mentor/work sister and taking a risk to be my partner, to Sherri Kreckler, Kevin Forister, Erin Mattingly, and Sarah Holmes - for the countless advice and encouragement, and Ryan Vasko and James Haffner for grammar checking us as the most talented copywriters we know.

The Brief:
This year, the overall creative ask was to promote WhyHunger’s Hungerthon and encourage Gen Zs and Young Millennials to engage with Why Hunger. The brief asked us to be focused on a femme identifying demographic and gave us statistics on how world hunger effects people of color disproportionately. Below is our write up that includes our approach and creative solutions as well as the final product.

Photography, Art Direction, Concept, Copywriting, Layout : Ellen Brown and Hannah Lewis