With just over 48 hours complete their entry for Young Lions – New Zealand’s leading creative competition , Joachim Pearson and Oscar Randle from The Yarn Agency learned one thing fast – trust your gut early and run with it.
The talented friends led Yarn Agency’s submission to the Young Lions which nurtures young (under 30) talent across creative and media agencies, sending the winners of each category on an all-expenses paid trip to the Cannes Lions Festival in June to compete against country winners from across the world.
Yarn Agency, an indie creative agency based at B:HIVE, entered in the film category – where their challenge was; to solve the problem that girls between the ages of 5 and 14 are less likely to get into sports than boys, and if they do, more likely to drop out. The lack of interest and commitment being partially attributed to unconscious parental bias.
With many potential ways to approach the challenge Joachim says it was important to trust the decided approach. “You really want to keep pushing and exploring different ideas and directions. You want to reflect and discuss the merits of your different options to make sure you have the best possible concept. But with such a tight timeframe, you have to balance that against the need to just pick something and go for it. I think we found a really good balance on this project,” he says.
Working from B:HIVE as well as from home Joachim and Oscar’s response was a short film called “Fight the Flinch” in which a young girl announces to her father that she wants to start playing rugby.
“It’s this moment where the dad is freaking out thinking of his little girl in a full contact sport. He doesn’t want to discourage her, but he’s caught off-guard and his face is giving everything away. The little girl narrates all his facial expressions to the audience as he’s thinking about the tough question, and at the end we remind the viewer that your daughter can read you like a book, and you need to be ready to fight these moments,” Joachim says.
Joachim Pearson (Art Director) and Oscar Randle (Intermediate Creative) have carved out a reputation for sharp insights and irreverent humour in their work. The duo picked up a NZ Pixel Award for their innovative Digital Out of Home campaign, and their client roster reads like a who’s who of iconic Kiwi brands; Hell Pizza, My Food Bag, Tourism NZ, Fonterra and Vodafone.
With bold thinking and clever storytelling, Yarn continue to push the creative boundaries and we can’t wait to see what they tackle next.