Grey Wins YouTube's Agency Film Hack Competition

Last night, Grey London took home the trophy for the annual YouTube Film Hack competition following the success of its #GetPaidToDoIt campaign (below).

This year the contest partnered up with D&AD to challenge various creative agencies to make a TrueView-inspired ad – aka one that will work on YouTube’s skippable pre-roll format. Inspired by unequal gender equality and disproportionate ethnic representation in the industry, Film Hack attempts to encourage more young people to take up jobs in advertising and design.

Competing against four other UK agencies – including BBH, J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy + Mather – Grey came out on top after winning the judge’s vote and securing the most online engagement.

The videos were judged partly by a panel of judges and partly down to their traction and popularity on YouTube. Judges included Great Guns’ founder Laura Gregory, Partizan director Martin Stirling and The Drum’s Andy Sandoz and Stephen Lepitak.

The structure of the competition helps agencies to understand just how measurable and important online engagement is, although of course, Grey also won various prizes, such as an annual D&AD membership and a signed copy of the 2016 D&AD annual.

Of their win, Grey creatives Ben Buswell and Andrew Singleton said: “To normal people, ‘creative’ sounds like bullshit. We needed to show the New Blood that creativity is just a word, that they already do creative stuff. With the right support they can turn what they do every day into a real job.”