The Mr Youth Creative team was in good company Friday night. As guests at the One Show Interactive Awards at New York’s Terminal 5, we were both surrounded and inspired by an eclectic and talented crew of colleagues. Each year, the One Club recognizes the agency teams behind the most innovative and buzz-worthy advertising of the last 12 months.

Here’s our personal compilation of the “wow”-worthy winners that made us applaud hardest:
 
Kindling a community of composers…

“Sounds of Hamburg” | Client: Philharmoniker Hamburg
Agency: Jung von Matt, Hamburg
Award: Gold Pencil, Websites and Microsites: Services

Because at the end of the day “it’s just advertising”…

“Pink Ponies” | Client: john st.
Agency: john st. advertising, Toronto
Award: Gold Pencil, Online Films and Video: Self-Promotion – Single

An awareness-builder of a different kind…

“The Girl Store” | Client: Nanhi Kali (K.C. Mahindra Education Trust)
Agency: StrawberryFrog, New York
Award: Bronze Pencil, Websites and Microsites: E-Commerce

Comedic gold for the cause…

“Devin & Glenn” | Client: Overturn Prop 8
Agency: Furlined, Santa Monica
Award: Silver Pencil, Online Films and Video: Public Service/Non-Profit – Single

Crowdsourcing creativity to honor the Man in Black…

“The Johnny Cash Project” | Client: American Recordings/Lost Highway
Agency: @radical.media, New York
Award: Gold Pencil, Websites and Microsites: Social Networks/Community

Some other favorites:

“Fastball” | Client: Google | Agency: BBH, New York

“UNIQLO Lucky Counter” | Client: UNIQLO | Agency: Dentsu, Tokyo

“Pay With A Tweet” | Client: Innovative Thunder | Agency: R/GA, New York

“I Am Not An Artist” | Client: Elisava | Agency: Soon in Tokyo

“Nike+ GPS” | Client: Nike | Agency: R/GA, New York

“The Fun Theory Winner – The Speed Camera Lottery” | Client: VW Sweden | Agency: DDB, Stockholm
 
A hearty high-five to all of this year’s winners. Keep our seats warm.

As the name may imply, here at Mr Youth many of us are not that far removed from college and often find ourselves immersed in the culture as part of the job. Via our RepNation influencer platform, we spend a lot of time on college campuses working with students and studying youth trends. Whenever I find myself on campus, I can’t help but reminisce about the good ol’ days and it always surprises me to see how much social media and technology has influenced college life in the short time since I left.

The Notes:

(Then) Paper and pen. Many of my professors frowned upon students having laptops in the classroom as they felt it was a distraction. I didn’t own a laptop until my senior year of college, and even then I rarely took it to class.
(Now) Studies are being done at colleges like the University of Notre Dame that analyze the pros and cons of using modern technology in the classroom. In this study, iPads were provided to a group of students, intended to be used as an e-reader, but over the course of the semester students found the iPads to be more useful as an aggregation tool rather than a replacement for a textbook. They reported that the devices are hard to take notes on and the majority felt the $499 price tag was just too expensive for their beer and ramen noodle budgets. Still, when asked how they felt about giving up the device at the end of the study, 65% said it would be hard to relinquish the iPad.

The Courses:

(Then) Looking back on my college curriculum, my major in Strategic Communications was largely focused in Public Relations – writing press releases and learning how to gain PR through traditional news outlets. I can’t help but wonder how much the curriculum has changed in these few short years since I graduated, as I naturally assume a large focus must be on non-traditional media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like.
(Now) Interestingly enough, I spent a little time on my alma mater’s website and it doesn’t look like much has changed in terms of the courses required to graduate with a BA in Strategic Communications. I’m going to guess that social media is interwoven into the current curriculum, which brings up an interesting question: Can social media really be taught, or is it something you can only really learn through practice?

The Phones:

(Then) Having a brother who works for a wireless provider, owning the latest and greatest cell phone has always been an obsession of mine. I vividly remember walking into college sophomore year with a hot pink Motorola flip phone with photo, video and texting capabilities, and wondering how it could ever get better than that.
(Now) Fast Forward to 2011, a recent study revealed that 49% of all college students own smart phones and this figure has nearly doubled over the past year. I would estimate that about 90% of the students we work with though RepNation equip themselves with iPhone, Droid and Blackberry devices which result in an expectation of near-immediate response time. It makes me wonder – in another 5 years, will students no longer have the luxury of reading emails and taking time to come up with a thoughtful and strategic response, in an effort to respond as quickly as possible? And, if this begins to become the norm so early on in one’s professional career, how will this affect the way we do business in the “real world”?

At the end of the day, I find the changes all very exciting, yet slightly terrifying at the same time. With endless potential it’s going to be hard to keep up with it all, but with the possibility of lectures being held via hologram, how can you not want to try?

2. Blimp Badge: Conan O’Brien’s comeback show on TBS is approaching, and east coast dwellers have a chance at unlocking a unique Foursquare badge for the occasion. If you see the giant orange CONAN blimp overhead make sure to check in!

3. Buying Starbucks for Friends through Facebook: As the 100th My Starbucks Idea this Facebook application allows users to reload the Starbucks cards of their friends. A great way to surprise, celebrate a birthday, or to pay that debt you owe…

4. Diesel Sneakers: Buyer beware. These shoes are “Not made for running. (Great for kicking asses).”

5. Instagram iPhone App: This wildly popular photo app allows users to morph their casual photography into amazing images, and share with friends in the process. Tapping into our egos, it also aggregates the most popular photos – challenging all 100k+ users to get their snapshots noticed.

6. Skype 5.0 Hearts Facebook: Remember when the social(media)ites were predicting a Skype/Facebook mash-up as part of Zuck’s big announcement? Well the new groups took that crown, but the functionality of connecting Skype with Facebook has arrived anyway!

7. Total Eclipse of the Heart Literal Version: I just always love this and wanted to remind all readers that it exists.

Mr Youth has just received high honors in one of Fast Company’s annual compendiums, making our way onto the list of the Top 10 Most Innovative Advertising & Marketing Companies.

Each year, Fast Company seeks out the smartest businesses across all industries. Mr Youth was praised for taking word-of-mouth marketing to the next level and for our innovative approach to technology, with a shout out to Mr Youth’s crowdsourcing platform, RepNation.

Fast Company puts this list of game-changers together annually, focusing on companies ranging from visionary upstarts to storied stalwarts. This year we make our appearance alongside the likes of Crispin Porter, R/GA, and Goodby Silverstein.

Click here to see why Fast Company doesn’t think of Mr Youth as “just another word-of-mouth marketing agency.”

What’s better than reading GrownUpThinking? Being able to take our social media musings on the road.

To thank our loyal followers for keeping up with both GrownUpThinking.com and our Fresh Ideas newsletter, Mr Youth hooked one lucky reader up with a brand new Kindle. Happy Holidays, Barret R!

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