A fourth-year Global Business and Digital Arts (GBDA) student has won a prestigious British Design and Art Direction Pencil Award for his Netflix marketing brief.
Austin Jack, a student at the University of Waterloo Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, created ‘Find Your Story’, a short video that embraces universal stories regardless of language preferences in Netflix’s voluminous library.
“It was an honour just to win the award because it is a huge industry accolade,” Jack said in an interview with StratfordToday. “I was definitely surprised when I got the email, and figured out that I won, it was kind of a crazy moment.”
The D&AD awards have categories for working professionals and what they call a ‘new blood’ category for students and those who have not yet entered the working world.
The awards, shaped like a pencil, are among the most prestigious in advertising.
At his parents’ home in Markham, currently working a co-op term with Hello Fresh, Jack said there were different ‘briefs’ that students could apply to within the new blood category.
The Netflix brief interested Jack and provided a challenge: More than half of the streaming service’s titles are not in English and some of its most popular shows are foreign language.
‘Find Your Story’ begins by asking the viewer about the most popular Netflix show in 2021. The South Korean survival drama Squid Game topped the list.
“Maybe you don’t speak Korean, but you do want to live a better life,” the video states.
“You are trying to find a way to encourage people not only to consider watching those non-English language titles but also showing them how everything is universal, you don’t really have to understand the language to be able to relate to what is happening on screen,” Jack said.
Through his research for the project, Jack determined viewers don’t have to understand the language to understand what is happening on screen, or to relate to the characters.
“You don’t have to understand Korean to understand poverty or what is going on there.”
Jack hopes to find employment at an advertising agency after he finishes up his last year in GBDA, whether that be in Canada, the U.S. or elsewhere in the world.
“I have a few dream agencies on my list that win a lot of awards,” he said. "But I am not picky about where I want to go. The main thing for me is to get into the industry because the first step is the hardest one.”
Jack said the GBDA program has been an interesting experience, but there have been a lot of ups and downs due to COVID. “The experience has been positive so far, I have met a lot of really good people and had the opportunity to explore different creative avenues.”
You can watch Jack’s winning submission here: D&AD Website