National CineMedia Launches 2025 US Young Lions Competition

Cinema advertising platform National CineMedia, the U.S. representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, officially launched the 2025 Young Lions competition and its new partnership lineup, including the Young Lions Titanium Award and new agency sponsorship. The 2025 competition marks 10 years of NCM’s role as U.S. representative and the first since NCM’s launch of the U.S. Lions Community, which pairs rising stars with established leaders through creativity, mentorship, networking, and thought leadership, and is comprised of 4,000-plus past and present Young Lions competitors, jurors, and mentors. Registration for this year’s competition is now open to advertising, marketing, and communications industry professionals born on or after June 20, 1994. Information on how to register can be found here. The 2025 Young Lions competition gives the industry’s rising stars an opportunity to learn from established leaders and grow their own careers, while working with peers in a global competition. Applicants compete across five categories—digital, film, media, PR, and print—and the winners of each category will form Team USA and head to Cannes to compete on a global stage. The competition will be judged by a group of jurors containing influential executives from industry-leading brands and agencies including TikTok, T-Mobile, Amazon, Uber, Gopuff, Publicis, Mischief, Whalar, and more. See the full list of jurors on the Young Lions website. The deadline to register is Jan. 17 before 8 p.m. ET. The competition begins Jan. 23, the entry deadline is Feb. 6, and finalists will be announced in March, with the winners for Team USA announced April 9 at an event in New York. “We're aligning this year's U.S. Young Lions competition as closely as possible with the global competition to better prepare the winners to become Team USA when they get to Cannes,” Amy Tunick, chief marketing officer at NCM, told ADWEEK. Convening a U.S. Lions community NCM launched the U.S. Lions Community last year to bring together those involved with the Young Lions and Cannes Lions, past and present. “What we've been doing with the U.S. Lions Community is connecting the dots between the established leaders, the seasoned executives ... and these young people, the rising stars of the next generation, and there's a lot of content and opportunity that's equally relevant and impactful, whatever stage of your career you're at,” said Tunick. She added that the jurors are having great mentorship experiences with the young talent, and the talent is learning from and being inspired by that mentorship. New sponsors, new award Two new agency sponsors have come aboard for Young Lions, aside from returning category sponsors Pereira O’Dell (film), UM (media), Weber Shandwick (PR), and Monotype (print). Agency Mother, which recently won ADWEEK’s International Agency of the Year award, came on as the digital category sponsor. In addition, Monotype, the print category sponsor, expanded its role by becoming the official Team USA outfitters partner, designing outfits for Team USA to keep them looking good in Cannes. In addition, there will be a new award, the U.S. Young Lions Titanium Award, which is being sponsored by agency StrawberryFrog. Its CEO, Scott Goodson, is a Young Lions juror in the digital category and will also judge the Young Lions Titanium award from the top 25 finalists. It meets roughly the same requirements as the Titanium Lions at Cannes, which recognizes groundbreaking, innovative work. The Young Lions program also includes a mentorship webinar series, which is exclusive content that competitors can engage with to support their career development. And NCM will again be donating cinema media to promote the competition and the winners in movie theaters nationwide. Tunick pointed out that this is the 30th anniversary of the global Young Lions competition, so NCM is looking to somehow incorporate stories from past participants and jurors from the past 30 years into this year’s Young Lions competition. For more about the 2025 Young Lions Competition, visit the website.

Cannes Lions

National CineMedia Launches 2025 US Young Lions Competition

NCM celebrates 10 years as the US representative for Cannes Lions

Kyle O’Brien

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications