School pupils' takeover Educating Yorkshire ad campaign

22 August 2013

4Creative boldly headed back to school to hand over the design of their latest creative marketing campaign to the pupils of Thornhill Community Academy near Dewsbury – the stars of Channel 4’s brand new Educating Yorkshire series starting this autumn.  

Educating Yorkshire is the follow-up documentary series to the critically acclaimed, BAFTA award-winning Educating Essex and will once again explore what really happens behind the school gates – but this time in a northern UK town.

Keen to inspire the next generation of advertising creative talent, 4Creative’s Pablo Gonzalez de le Pena, Molly Manners and Emily Grover came up with the idea to make the marketing campaign part of the school children’s educational life. They also considered that as the stars will make the programme fascinating viewing, who else would be better placed to tell people why they should watch than the pupils themselves.

4Creative then headed to the school to educate the pupils on the principles of advertising and what is involved in coming up with an idea. They then briefed the school, passing the responsibility of making the ads over to the pupils.

Quashing any trepidation of handing over a design brief to contributors, the pupils enthusiastically tackled the brief producing over one hundred drawings and paintings – many with a healthy dose of Channel 4’s signature mischief.

Several designs were chosen for national poster boards – including some on the school run in Yorkshire – as well as digital and press ads. More of the children’s work will be displayed in an online gallery at channel4.com/Yorkshire. The campaign will launch on Monday 26th August – and a special film following the making of the campaign will be available on channel4.com from Thursday 22nd August.

Chris Bovill and John Allison, Heads of 4Creative said: “The 400 strong creative department did us proud – A stars all round.”

The marketing campaign was managed by clients Laura Ward, Group Marketing Manager, Factual & Drama and Grace Ayres, Marketing Manager, Factual. The campaign creative was conceived by 4Creative’s Pablo Gonzalez de le Pena, Molly Manners and Emily Grover, directed by Chris Bovill and John Allison, Executive Creative Directors, with Nik Windsor, Business Director, Tabby Harris, Producer and Nicky Campbell, Digital Producer.

 

Notes to Editors

About 4Creative 

4Creative is Channel 4’s multi-award winning creative agency and was recently named Creative Review’s Ad Agency of the Year. 

Headed up by Chris Bovill and John Allison, 4Creative acts as both creative agency and production company across all advertising output for Channel 4 and its family of brands.

In 2012, 4Creative were responsible for the multi-award winning Paralympics campaign ‘Meet the Superhumans’. The 90 second film celebrated the herculean efforts of Paralympians, capturing their grit and determination intercut with an insight into their back-stories – set to the epic Public Enemy track, ‘Harder Than You Think’. The film received widespread acclaim and has earned 4Creative multiple awards including the UK’s only Grand Prix at the 2013 Lions, a Black Pencil and four Yellow Pencils at the D&AD Awards, multiple Gold Awards at Creative Circle and British Arrows where the ad was awarded ‘commercial of the year’, a Grand Prix at the Marketing Society Awards (jointly with Sainsbury’s); it was Campaign magazine’s Campaign of the Year in 2012 and was also voted one of TED’s Ads Worth Spreading.

Following this, 4Creative were behind the thrilling, critically acclaimed ad campaign for The Grand National, broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time this year. The film, which saw Liverpool city take the place of Aintree’s race course, won a Bronze Lion at Cannes 2013. The team were also behind the highly praised marketing campaign for Channel 4’s Mating Season which explored dating through the eyes of a recently bereaved Galapagos Tortoise named Arthur.  A series of trails followed Arthur on his emotional journey to find love in the 21st century and through his eyes, viewers experienced just how complex the dating landscape has become.

Most recently, 4creative brought back the spirit of the London 2012 Paralympic Games with a campaign that saw the return of the ‘Superhumans’ for the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, featuring Paralympic gold medal winners David Weir, Hannah Cockroft, Jonnie Peacock and Josie Pearson pushing themselves to the limit once again.