We're thrilled to announce the shortlist for our inaugural Head First Award, an initiative aimed at promoting mental wellbeing through advertising. 

The five shortlisted brands and agencies selected by the award judges are:

  • Harry's (Creative Agency: The Or, Media Agency: Goodstuff)

  • WWF (Creative Agency: Uncommon, Media Agency: Merkle)

  • Talk Club (Creative Agency: Made With & Ant Farm)

  • Isuzu UK (Creative Agency: 438 Marketing, Media Agency: TMWI)

  • Nando's (Creative Agency: New Commercial Arts, Media Agency: Zenith)

The shortlisted entrants will now develop an in-person pitch and the brand named the overall winner will be awarded £1 million in airtime. ITV will match-fund the other four shortlisted entries up to £250k each, with the final campaigns due on air in Q4 2024.

The award was announced at the ITV Palooza last November and is being judged by some of the biggest experts in the advertising industry, including Chair Sheila Mitchell CBE, former Marketing Director for Public Health England, who was the architect behind key programmes including Every Mind Matters and Change4Life.

The other judges include Poppy Jaman OBE, Founder and Executive Vice Chair, MindForward Alliance; Simon Gunning, CEO, CALM; Lindsey Clay, CEO, Thinkbox; Chris Birch, Executive Creative Director, VCCP; Maisie McCabe, UK Editor, Campaign; Kate Waters, Client Strategy & Planning Director, ITV; and Susie Braun, Social Purpose Director, ITV. Find out more about our judges here.

The campaign was devised by Rachel Compton, Head of Commercial Marketing, ITV. 

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"We were absolutely delighted at the response to the inaugural ITV Head First Award both in terms of quality and quantity. A huge thank you to all those organisations who applied creativity and real thought to the mental health agenda. It was particularly gratifying to see how big TV ideas were aligned with behavioural customer experiences."
Sheila Mitchell CBE, former Marketing Director for Public Health England and chair of judges for ITV Head First Award
"The idea behind the ITV Head First Award was to build on the success of ITV’s Britain Get Talking campaign to create a culture where we all do more to look after our mental wellbeing. I’m thrilled by the response from brands who have really risen to the creative challenge of putting mental wellbeing at the heart of their campaigns and can’t wait to see who’s crowned the overall winner."
Rachel Compton, Head of Commercial Marketing, ITV

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