Snapchat gathers Creative Council to address pressing societal issues

What will the Creative Council do?

• Through the remainder of the year, the SCC will focus on mental health and civic duty amongst Gen Z and millennials.

• Selected creatives will nominate sub teams to devise pitches by utilising Snapchat’s in-house suite of ad formats.

• The best of these will be professionally produced and enacted on Snapchat, complete with media support.

• A chosen global charity will also be awarded a $100,000 donation as part of this process.

• Will Scougal, global director of Creative Strategy at Snap, said: “The SCC will serve as a powerful forum made up of a diverse and inclusive community from the advertising industry, and is a commitment from Snap to use our reach to drive positive change."

• Ali Hanan, chief executive of Creative Equals added: “Lydia Amoah, our phenomenal cross-cultural and learning director will bring her wealth of experience as a business coach and independent researcher with The Black Pound Report.”

• Hanan confirmed that Amoah will work alongside ‘three returner teams’ from its CreativeComeback programme 2019-20.

Who is involved?

The inaugural 2020 UK Snap Creative Council includes a cohort of familiar industry names such as:

• Natalie Graeme, Uncommon Creative Studio

• Iain Tait, W+K

• Laura Jordan Bambach, Grey

• Jo Wallace, Wunderman Thompson

Why does it matter?

• The council is born out of a broader commitment by Snapchat to ease anxiety and surface mental health support networks to the social platform's 220 million daily users.

• Bambach cites the council as an opportunity to ‘get geeky with the tech’ and a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to ‘deliver an actionable difference to the world’.

• Grey’s chief creative officer continues: “The SCC briefs around mental health and voter registration are wonderful opportunities for the teams at Grey to work with Snapchat experts to create work that’s really going to have a positive effect on minority communities around the world.”

• VCCP Kin's deputy executive creative director, Shirin Majid, adds: “The SCC briefs are giving creatives a chance to empower the next generation with ways to use technology and social media for the greater good.”

• Dino Myers-Lamptey, founder, The Barber Shop, warns that ‘big screen thinking’ still leads advertising ideas – despite the small-screen dominating our attention.

• “Creating a memorable difference in a world of so much distraction demands creativity, so I am excited by what can be enabled by focussing diverse creative talent with these healthy constraints," said Myers-Lamptey.