100 judges, 75 companies, 50 finalists, 170 meetings: Big Bang 2016

The headhunting firm Daniel Marks have been tackling diversity and gender equality issues head on this year with their Big Bang Creative and Marketing Internship Scheme. Working closely with The Prince’s Trust, A New Direction and a number of local colleges - Daniel Marks have been attracting a wide pool of young creative talent from diverse backgrounds to submit creative entries in answer to a brief on The Dots.

All shortlisted work was reviewed by a panel of judges of Executive Creative Director’s and Heads of Marketing from agencies including Mother, Grey, Havas, Publicis, Ogilvy & Mather, R/GA, AnalogFolk and Razorfish and from Brands including Innocent, Farfetch, BBC, The Guardian, Innocent, GHD, Vita Coco and notonthehighstreet.com.

This year’s brief was to ‘Create a brand and advertise an IFO - an Identified Flying Object’. Applications had to include a brand name and identity of IFO, 3 pieces of advertising and a 2 page study to show creative strategy. All work was reviewed by the Creative team at Daniel Marks who selected over 50 Finalists.

As well as tackling diversity issues the scheme aims to improve gender equality and has been working closely with Creative Equals. This year 50% of the Judges were female leaders in their field and over 50% of females were shortlisted in the Finalists category of young people.

Last year the scheme had 30 Judges with 30 Finalists work to review - resulting in 20 young people gaining Internships with Jayed Ahmed who applied through The Prince’s Trust taking the coveted ‘Rising Star Award’.

This year the three roundtable events have hosted over 100 Judges from 75 different companies. The results are looking good as 50 finalists have been offered a total of 170 meetings with a view to taking paid internships at London living wage. This initiative looks to really make a difference in tackling the industries diversity and gender equality issues - whilst giving a number of young people an opportunity that’s so important to get a start in the creative and marketing industry.

“It was such an honour to be asked to join the judging panel of the Big Bang 2016. Opening up the competition to all creatives from copywriters to art directors and even creative teams was really interesting. The work blew us away and it was a brilliant opportunity to see new talent bring the brief alive from different perspectives.” Jess Williams - Head of Global Studio Design & Artwork at ghd

Entries included ‘Up’ - a build your own toy kit which can make anything fly; ‘Bug’ - a tiny flying running mate you program a route to follow whilst running that also functions as a tour guide; ‘Birdie’ - a camera you throw in the air to take a group selfie with the slogan ‘Don’t take a selfie - take a Birdie’.

“Where did they find them all? This year’s Big Bang Awards was a mind boggling parade of weird and wonderful raw creativity. A reminder of just how much untapped brilliance there is out there”. Angus Mackinnon - Group Creative Director at POKE

The Winner of The Rising Star Award this year, however, is BIG ideas man Anthony Morrison Bowen, 24, whose NasDrone is a flying AI device that, with its VR headset, you connect with your personal drone akin to a second life. Standing for Nimrod Augmented Systems (NAS) it gives you the ability to connect with other users referred to as ‘pilots’ to form a community. Being a pilot, Anthony tells us, is an honour with a sense of responsibility, duty and integrity. With one eye on the MOD, Anthony has big plans for NasDrone and it was joked with the judges someone had better hire him before the Russians get him!

“I was really impressed by the Big Bang Scheme and the creative talent expressed by the young people. It was inspiring to see so many senior creative leaders showing enthusiasm to hiring diverse, young talent.” Vicky Yorke - Outcomes Manager at The Prince’s Trust