When Jennifer Perry learned that she and fellow Lowe New York creative assistant Krystyn Campbell had beat out 59 other teams to represent the United States in the Global Young Creative Competition at the 2003 Cannes International Advertising Festival, she wasn’t sure whether to take the news seriously. After all, as she points out, she received the call "right after" April Fools’ Day.
[When I was] told we’d won, I didn’t believe it at first," Perry recalls. "I kept saying, ‘no way, no way!’ "
"Then Jenn called me, and I kept saying, ‘No way, no way," Campbell laughs. "It took us both a while to believe it."
Despite the team’s doubts, it was no April Fool’s Day joke. Campbell and Perry will fly to Cannes for the International Advertising Festival, where they will compete against 30 other young creative teams from all over the world in a 24-hour-long race to complete the most noteworthy print ad on behalf of a public service/not-for-profit client. Aside from the fact that the ad "will be for some sort of non-profit," Perry says that she and Campbell—like the rest of the competitors—know none of the details of the upcoming contest. "We arrive there Saturday morning, and then we get briefed at about six p.m.," relates Perry. "Then, we have twenty four hours to come up with the ad."
Though it’ll be their first daylong brainstorm, the duo knows how to meet a tight deadline. They were only given a week to devise the advertisement that earned them their spot in the competition. "It was for Prevent Child Abuse, America," relates Campbell, a 2002 graduate of the University of Dayton, Ohio, and the art director of the team. "It was a targeted at sixteen-to-twenty four-year olds, and the idea was to educate young parents on the dangers of having unrealistic expectations of their children."
Using irony to drive home that point, the ad pictures a "Perfect Baby" doll, its markedly unreal traits—"Never needs a diaper change!" and "Sleeps all night long!"—listed on the package. "We wanted to show the problem of not knowing how a real child is supposed to develop, and not knowing what you’re supposed to expect raising a young child," says Campbell. "Also the dangers of certain behaviors, like shaking a baby."
"There were eight judges and I guess they got together, and put all the work up on the walls and had a look at it, and selected our ad unanimously," shares copywriter Perry, who graduated from Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y. in ’02. "We found out a week or two after we entered."
Perry attributes their success to a shared sensibility: "I think we work very well together in that we go to the brief and we’re able to dissect it," she notes. "We’re able to get it down to that one single point that we base the ad on."
"We think each others’ input is really valuable, so we learn from each other," adds Campbell, who, like Perry, has been working at the agency since graduation. "In the creative environment that we’re in here at Lowe, copywriters and art directors have to know how to do each [other’s] job well. That’s what we’re trying to follow."
Lowe’s creative environment has already spawned success in the Young Creative Competition. Last year, Lowe copywriter Steve Lundberg and art director Rebecca Peterson represented the U.S.—and brought home a Silver Lion for their efforts.
A PSA for the International Secretariat for Water, Lundberg’s and Peterson’s award-winning spread depicts a landmine, a gun, an ashtray filled with cigarettes and finally, a glass of water, against a stark, white background. Under each item is a statistic. The landmine: "Kills 26,000 people a year." The gun: "Kills 1.8 Million People a Year." The cigarettes: "Kills 3 million people a year." Under the glass of water are the words, "Kills 5 million people a year," demonstrating the importance of pure, unpolluted drinking water.
Campbell admits Lundberg and Peterson are a tough act to follow. "There is pressure to do as well as them," she relates. "We’re a little nervous about that, as I’m sure anyone would be. But we’re also really excited about it. And the great thing is, we have them here as mentors to help us out and give us advice."
What kind of advice are they getting from last year’s Team USA? "They keep telling us to take it easy and have a good time," Campbell replies. "I guess it’s just about not putting too much pressure on yourself."
Of course, that’s easier said than done when you’ve only got 24 hours to come up with a winning print ad. And, while she has no idea what the competition will be like, Perry says she knows one thing for sure: "We’re definitely going to be ingesting large amounts of caffeine."
