National Advertising Challenge Briefs Go Live

Toronto-based Zulu Alpha Kilo has launched a new campaign to plug this year’s National Advertising Challenge (NAC) briefs to Canada’s ad community led by a funny web film set in an agency.

Nine briefs have been issued, sponsored by Canadian marketers looking for solutions across nine categories – including Big Ideas, Campaign, Student, Print, OOH, Wild Card, Not for Profit, Media Innovation and Digital – and entrants are being tasked to dream up the most unconventional solutions with the winners receiving a trip to Cannes Lions in June.

The humorous 90-second video aims to get the creative community talking about the challenge and differentiate itself from other creative showdowns like the annual Young Lions Competition. The online piece depicts a stressed out creative resource manager who intercepts a young creative as he prints out a number of NAC briefs which she believes are surely going to cripple productivity.

Formerly the National Advertising Awards (NAA), the show changed its name this year after facing some confusion in the market about what it was all about. “We have big aspirations for the NAC, but we were facing a serious comprehension issues within the creative community,” says Ellie Metrick, marketing and communications manager at NAC. “This year’s online video goes a long way in explaining that we offer creatives an opportunity to do original work in exchange for a chance to go to Cannes.”

The video was directed by Pete Henderson, represented by production company Someplace Nice and edited by Chris Parkins at Rooster.

“The advertising community is hard to market to because their bar is so high when it comes to creative,” says Zak Mroueh, founder & chief creative officer at Zulu Alpha Kilo. “The NAC is a great opportunity for creatives to face-off against the best in the industry and see how they stack up.”

The briefs went live this week, with a deadline of 30 March 2015. Judging takes place in early April by a panel of Canada’s advertising elite and is co-chaired by CDs Ari Elkouby and Nellie Kim, from Zulu Alpha Kilo and LG2 respectively.

Last year’s NAC competition garnered 200 entries, but the hopes are to double that amount in 2015. The Gala and awards ceremony will take place on 30 April; to register to attend, find out more about the briefs and submit your work click here.