Yahoo! holds Cannes contest for ad professionals

Yahoo! launched the “Big Shot in Cannes” contest to capitalize on the user-created advertising craze by holding a contest for advertising professionals.

Here’s the story: Yahoo! is soliciting from ad agencies “green” ads (30 seconds or less of multimedia content) that encourage people to make the world a better place, whether by conserving energy, recycling or protecting wildlife. Users will vote on submissions, with the highest rated ones going to a panel of well-known agency creatives.

Top three submissions will win a trip to the International Advertising Festival held in Cannes, France, from June 17-23. At Cannes, winners will receive a Yahoo! Big Idea chair, have their commercials screened in the Palais and be entered into the 2008 festival. The contest runs through May 7.

“In the last 30 days, how much have you seen about this thing called user-generated content?” Jerry Shereshewsky, Yahoo’s roving ambassador to ad agencies said.

“One of the questions I’m constantly being asked is, ‘What is this stuff?’ It seems to me the best way to learn about something is to do it. If user-generated content is going to be part of what the advertising landscape looks like [in the future], doesn’t it make sense for the people who do the work to get their fingers dirty.”