Release Details

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2019-- National CineMedia (NCM), the U.S. representative to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, is proud to present the winning teams of the 2019 U.S. Young Lions competitions. Over 400 entries were submitted this year from teams of young professionals working for advertising, digital, media, creative, and PR agencies as well as in-house marketing teams.

2019 U.S. Cannes Young Lions Winning Teams:(click on the links to view the winning campaigns)

• Digital: Samantha Salzano & Sydney Spence, Digitas
• Film: Andre Bittar & Oscar Nilsson, Pereira & O’Dell SF
• Media: Teresa James & Ben Nottonson, Havas Media Boston
• PR: Amy Jacobsen & Niklas Laabs, Vox Global
• Print: Alex Kim & Al Smith, MRM//McCann Detroit

2019 U.S. Cannes Young Lions 2^nd and 3^rd Place Teams:

• Digital – 2^nd Place: Christina Swan, Digitas Chicago & Danny Weilandt, Juice Interactive/OKRP Chicago
• Digital – 3^rd Place: Zoe Myers & Helen Rieger, Copywriter, Arnold Boston
• Film – 2^nd Place: Julian Cohen, VaynerMedia & David Dominguez, Red Fuse Communications
• Film – 3^rd Place: Melanie Liu & Reed Holtzman, Digitas
• Media – 2^nd Place: Sarah Barry & Maxim Kabakov, UM New York
• Media – 3^rd Place: Rosie Kerstetter & Tony Vinella, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
• PR – 2^nd Place: Tony Avila & Jess Phelan, Weber Shandwick
• PR – 3^rd Place: Alyson Barnes & Susan Portman, Ketchum
• Print – Runners-Up: Darina Khafizova, Publicis & Caleb Newberg, VMLY&R

Each of the winning teams will be sent, all expenses paid, to Cannes, France to compete as Team USA in the global Young Lions competition at the 66^th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world’s leading celebration of creativity in communications, taking place from June 17 - 21, 2019.

The teams were challenged to develop a creative and innovative campaign in their respective categories that would increase name and brand recognition as well as drive new donations for End Allergies Together (E.A.T.) among Millennials.

E.A.T. was launched in May 2015 with the goal of accelerating treatments and cures for the growing food allergy epidemic. It is a charitable organization committed to finding and funding treatments and cures of food allergies, and in just three years, E.A.T. has funded eight studies across eleven top institutions. It has a multi-perspective approach, bringing together medical, scientific, business and legal communities to make high-impact research grants.

Elise Bates, President, End Allergies Together (E.A.T.), explained the impact this 2019 Young Lions initiative will have on the organization, saying, “Today, we can’t accurately diagnose food allergies, we don’t know why the epidemic is growing, and we don’t know what happens in our body that triggers anaphylaxis to food proteins. We can’t cure something we don’t fundamentally understand. Major investments in basic science are critical, but to do that, we need to raise both awareness and funds. Having the best and brightest young minds in the advertising industry today working to develop campaign ideas to help us reach our key Millennial audience is truly a gift, and one that I know will help further E.A.T.’s important mission.”

Cliff Marks, President and Interim CEO of National CineMedia (NCM), added, “I am more impressed by the work exhibited by the Young Lion participants every year, and if 2019 is any indication, the future of advertising is incredibly bright. The winning teams created some exceptional campaigns for End Allergies Together (E.A.T.), and these great ideas will go on to raise funds that will drive research to ultimately help the more than 220 million people who suffer from food allergies worldwide.”

A special thanks to the 2019 U.S. Young Lions sponsors for their continuous involvement and generous support of this year’s competitions: Digitas forDigital, Pereira & O’Dellfor Film, UM for Media, The PR Council for PR, National CineMedia (NCM)for Print. Getty Images provided access to their Creative Insights microsite for imagery to be used in some of these Young Lions entries.

NCM would also like to thank the industry expert judges who scored this year’s submissions:

Digital: Jennifer Awasano, Digitas; Sarah Bruns, Digitas; Jerry Canning, NCM; Emily Chan, AKQA SF; Sue Desilva, Digitas; Bryan Dempler, AKQA SF; Craig Elimeliah, VML; Erika Hagberg, Google; Ken Johnston, Facebook; Eric King, R/GA Chi.; Sue Kohm, R/GA Chi.; Mark Philip, Groupe Connect; Nick Reggars, Goodby Silverstein & Partners; Dave Roth, Digitas; Tony Snethen, VMLY&R; Kwame Taylor-Hayford, Chobani.

Film:Jason Apaliski, Pereira & O’Dell; Chris Barnes, NCM; Marianne Besch, McGarry Bowen SF; Robert Lambrechts, Pereira & O’Dell; Leeann Leahy, The Via Agency; Matt Reinhard, O’Keefe, Reinhard & Paul; Garrick Schmitt, Essence Global.

Media: JP Aguirre, UM SF; Amy Armstrong, Initiative; Rachel Brook, Mediacom; Dan Bruinsma, Groupe Connect; Kari Callahan, Amazon; Christine Chen, Goodby Silverstein & Partners; Pele Cortizo-Burgess, Initiative; Kim Einan, StarcomWW; Mason Franklin, UM; Andy Heath, Mindshare; Hallie Johnston, Initiative; Sabrina Jordan, GSD&M; Colin Kinsella, Havas NA; Daniele Kohn, Mindshare; Eve Leshaw, UM; Tara Levine, Hearts & Science; Lynn Lewis-Pinkus, UM; Jason Lim, Mediacom; Melissa McCormick, 360i; Leah Meranus, Initiative; Sean O’Sullivan, Carat; Haley Paas, Carat; Anush Prabhu, Mediacom; Sarah Stringer, Carat; Ben Winkler, OMD; Amy Worley, VMLY&R.

PR:Dale Bornstein, M Booth (Jury Chair); Julie Batliner, Carmichael Lynch Relate; Heather Kernahan, Hotwire; Cheryl Overton, Egami Group; Jason Schlossberg, Huge; Greg Tarmin, Padilla.

Print: Soham Chatterjee, Leo Burnett; Aaron Evanson, VMLY&R; Ricardo Franco, TBWA; Jeff Goeke, NCM; Rebecca Honeyman, Source Code Communications; Menno Kluin, 360i; Mike Lear, Consultant; Kathleen Nanda, FCB; Stephanie Plenner, NCM; Bernardo Romero, Grey; Jameson Rossi, Deutsch NY; Marian Williams, O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul.

About the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2019 U.S. Young Lions Competition

The 2019 U.S. Young Lions competition was open to teams of two professionals aged 30 years or younger: born after June 22, 1988. The winning teams will be sponsored to attend the Cannes Lions Festival June 17-21, 2019 to participate in the global Young Lions competitions as “Team USA,” showcasing their talent globally by competing against teams from all over the world. Winners of the Cannes global competitions will receive free registration and accommodations to attend the following year’s Cannes Lions Festival. For more information, visit http://canneslions.ncm.com/young-lions.

About National CineMedia (NCM)

National CineMedia is America’s Movie Network. As the #1 Millennial weekend network in the U.S., NCM is the connector between brands and movie audiences. According to Nielsen, more than 750 million moviegoers annually attend theaters that are currently under contract to present NCM’s Noovie in 57 leading national and regional theater circuits including AMC Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:AMC), Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNK) and Regal Entertainment Group. NCM’s cinema advertising network offers broad reach and unparalleled audience engagement with over 21,100 screens in over 1,700 theaters in 187 Designated Market Areas® (all of the top 50). NCM Digital goes beyond the big screen, extending in-theater campaigns into online and mobile marketing programs to reach entertainment audiences. National CineMedia, Inc. owns a 48.6% interest in, and is the managing member of, National CineMedia, LLC. For more information, visit www.ncm.com and www.noovie.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190501005923/en/

Source: National CineMedia

Amy Jane Finnerty
(212) 931-8117
amy.finnerty@ncm.com