GroupM attracts young talent with new reality show

GroupM China has launched a new initiative to encourage young talent to the industry, via a reality show which features real-time pitching scenarios. Moving on from 2012’s “apprentice-style” competition, this year’s challenge involved 40 young talents from GroupM China, working in five teams to compete on a real, live client brief. The challenge is preceded by Accelerate, a GroupM proprietary pitch training program for media planners and buyers, to equip the participants for the pitch competition.The winning team will win a cash prize of RMB 24,000.The eight-episode show will kick off with a promotional trailer today, and from January 8th , two episodes per week will be released at every Wednesday on youku.com (http://u.youku.com/群邑学徒). The program will also be promoted on Youku, Renren, Douban, Sohu TV, Tudou, iQiyi and PPTV, LeTV and Sina Weibo. As China's largest media investment management group, GroupM China hopes to reach out to young people under 30 years old who may have an interest in the communications industry but knows little, and to provide them a platform to learn and understand more about how a media agency works. Mark Patterson, CEO of GroupM Asia Pacific and chairman of GroupM China said, a dearth of media talent is a perennial problem faced by all agencies in our industry. "We hope that through ‘GroupM Young Power – 24-Hour Pitch’, we can raise the interest level and attract more young people to our industry, and to keep this industry creative, young and vibrant.”This project was initiated and developed by the winners of GroupM “30 under 30” award, an annual award created by GroupM China to encourage and reward the young talents within our own organisation.