UK based advertising creatives, Alex Goddard, David Felton, and Asa Bradshaw rallied together for a new holiday campaign, which helps young talent receive book crits from senior creatives.
“We spoke about how hard it is to get even a book crit these days if you are at a junior level, and wanted to find a way to make it a bit easier for everyone,” explained Bradshaw.
When they realized that they had faced similar situations, they decided to do something about it and formed a pitch for this project. Soon after, in collaboration with Magnafi, Trunk Agency, OneMinuteBriefs and AgencyQuotes, the group launched http://www.merrycritmas.com.
The site gives visitors two options, to roast a creative or get roasted.
“Aspiring creatives present their portfolios to senior creatives, who critique their work and give them advice. The roasting part is just a joke,” Felton added. “We don’t actually want any portfolios or junior creative to be harmed in the making of this campaign.”
Senior creatives that have joined to become Santa’s helpers comprise of Roy Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, Tom Richards, Chief Creative Officer at Haval Lynx, Tom Goodwin, Head of Innovation at Zenith, Gav Gordon-Rogers, Creative Partner at DigitasLBi Edinburgh to name a few.
The campaign has received submissions from people in several countries, including Portugal, The Philippines, South Africa, Australia, India, Germany, USA, and Brazil.
“We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to give or receive the gift of advice this Christmas” by matching senior and junior advertising creatives on a global scale, Goddard told DIVERGE.
She added that diversity is incredibly important to their project because they want as many different people who work or want to work in advertising involved.
“No matter what your level of experience, background or education etc, everyone gets treated equally and has the opportunity to be matched at random with an agency or junior creative,” Goddard explained.
The team explained that there are several people that they couldn’t have done this without:
Nick Entwistle, Creative Director at Magnafi and Founder of One Minute Briefs, Adam Britton, Creative Director at Trunk, Andy Peel at YCC for being our very first elf and getting the (snow)ball rolling and everyone who signs up as without them, #MerryCritmas wouldn’t be happening.
