Nokia Nseries today announced it will be the exclusive telecom sponsor of the prestigious Young Lions Film Competition aimed at supporting and nurturing young talent in the advertising industry. Each of the creative teams in the film segment will be provided with a Nokia Nseries handset with which to shoot their entry in this famous annual competition. While the teams shoot their stories, Nokia will collect footage to produce regular video blogs highlighting teams in action at www.nseries.com/cannes. In addition, the footage will be used for a “behind the scenes” documentary that will be televised globally later on.

“The Young Lions Competition provides us with an excellent opportunity to showcase our Nokia Nseries range as the mobile devices for content creation and creativity. With their state-of-the art image and video capture and sharing features, Nokia Nseries handsets enable people to take full advantage of their creativity,” said Johan Eidhagen, Marketing Director, Explore category, Nokia.

The Young Lions Competition takes place during the famous Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the “Oscars of advertising”, from June 15-21, 2008. Based on a brief from an organization chosen by the festival, 27 creative teams will use their Nokia Nseries device to shoot and edit a 60-second viral film within 48 hours. The winners will be announced on June 21. Nokia Nseries handsets will also be used for collecting footage of the teams in action that will be shared in video blogs at that website.

Open to advertising professionals up to 28 years of age, the Young Lions Competition gathers creative teams from around the world. The participating teams have been selected through a pre-selection process in their own country, with the winners attending Cannes.

Nokia will also create ‘The Cannes Experiment’, a creative hub in the Palais de Festivals that will give those attending the Festival the opportunity to play with some customized Nokia Nseries devices and have their work featured as part of a globally televised program that is being shot with same Nokia Nseries devices. There will also be masterclasses on how to use the devices as part of the creative process, including using them to shoot images or video in unique ways.

Nokia Nseries handsets are technologically advanced mobile handsets combining the functionalities of many portable single-purpose devices in a multi-purpose converged device that is always connected and enables rich web 2.0 experiences. This range of products offers leading cellular and non-cellular connectivity such as 3G, WLAN and HSDPA, pioneering photo and video capture features including megapixel cameras and Carl Zeiss optics, quick and intuitive sharing features online, and much more. The flagship product of this range is the Nokia N95 that has won numerous industry tests, awards and has been praised by consumers, operators and analysts.

The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is the largest gathering of worldwide advertising professionals and advertisers as well as the most prestigious annual advertising awards. Each year, over 10,000 visitors from the advertising and allied industries attend this event to celebrate the best of creativity across all media, discuss industry issues and network with one another.

Source: Nokia Press Release