The Brief
Circle Sports represents employment opportunities for young people in disadvantaged areas. Instead of a charity that raises funds in the traditional sense, Circle Sports has a sports store offering young people work experience in a real business, to help them on the way toward a full-time job.
But with unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds at 18.5% and the worst economic growth since 1930, it's harder and harder for young people to find employment, experience and a way to move forward in life. Employers, who are less and less willing to give opportunities to a generation they don’t understand, hold the keys.
The Insight
People subconsciously respond to stereotypes. Holding a negative stereotype makes people hunt for information that confirms it, and hearing a stereotype about yourself makes you more likely to conform to it. Yet if the fallacy of your preconceptions is shown, you can break free from them. It's up to both sides to change stereotypes about each other.
In order to see the potential in young people, we need to look at them in a different way.
The Idea
We wanted to test those stereotypes that people hold about young people from disadvantaged backgrounds so we set up a job interview - but not a normal one. Using a hidden camera we had a careers advisor voice regular stereotypes about youth and we let the interviewees' reactions speak for themselves. The campaign then invited you to canvass on behalf of the people in the video, to help them get a job.
The Results
While the video did not take off in terms of views that we wanted, we did manage to get all the young people in the video a job.
Awards
Kinsale Sharks - Silver
Creative Circle - Bronze
