Creative Shootout 2018 finalists revealed

The finalists for the Creative Shootout Live Final have been announced. Nine agencies were selected by the 17-strong judging panel, which included leading names from YouTube, Hello! and Weber Shandwick.

The finalists, who will compete at BAFTA on 25 January 2018, are:

• Bottle
• Clarion Comms
• Frank
• Ignis
• Mischief
• Pretty green
• Shape History
• Talker Tailor Trouble Maker
• Text 100

The Creative Shootout is an annual competition that presents a charity brief to the finalists, who then have four hours create a ten-minute pitch. The ‘Live’ Final is just that, with the audience voting on each pitch to decide the top three, including a winner whose pitch will be supported by £250,000 media prize fund from 1XL, and £30,000 worth of agency fees from this year’s Charity FareShare.

FareShare is the UK’s largest food re-distribution charity that is responsible for feeding half a million people a week, by redistributing good, surplus food to over 6,700 frontline charities and community groups.

Entry to the Creative Shootout was open to any marketing agency in the UK. Entrants each had to submit ‘60 seconds’ on why they had the creative clout for FareShare. These were whittled down to nine finalists by the judging panel which this year consisted of:

• Abba Newbery, Creator Development, YouTube
• Alyson Walsh, Marketing Director, FareShare
• Andrew Bloch, Founder & Group MD, Frank
• Colin Byrne, CEO UK & EMEA, Weber Shandwick
• David Gallagher, President, Growth & Development, Omnicom
• Emma De La Fosse, CCO, O&M
• Henry Faure Walker, CEO, Newsquest
• James Booth, Founder & CEO, Scoota
• Jason Gardiner, TV Personality, Founder & Creative Director, The Rabbit Hole Group
• Professor Jonathan Shalit OBE, Chairman, ROAR Group (UK)
• Johnny Pitt, Founder, The Creative Shootout
• Luke D’Arcy, President, Momentum
• Paul Bainsfair, Director General, IPA
• Rosie Nixon, Editor-in-Chief, Hello!
• Simon Gill, Chief Creative Officer, Isobar
• Simon Peck, Group Managing Director, Engine UK
• Sophie Daranyi, Chairman, Haygarth

Creative Shootout Founder Johnny Pitt said: ‘We’ve a cracking nine agencies in the Final this year. Choosing nine from the long list was tough, and the final decision was very, very close – namely because there were so many strong entries from a really diverse range of agencies.’

For more information about this year’s event, and to buy tickets, visit creativeshootout.com.