Here are the US Winners of NCM's 2025 Young Lions Competition

Honorees will represent the U.S. at Cannes Lions after standout work for nonprofit WhyHunger.

National CineMedia celebrates 10 years as U.S. Cannes Lions rep with the 2025 Young Lions announcement event in NYC.

National CineMedia (NCM), the cinema advertising platform and U.S. representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, has revealed the winners of the 2025 U.S. Young Lions competition.

The Young Lions contest honors emerging creative talent across five categories: Digital, Film, Media, PR, and Print. The winning teams, primarily made up of Gen Z and millennial creatives, were recognized for their bold, insight-driven work that resonated with their generation’s values and concerns.

This year’s competition drew 359 entries from over 500 teams. The winners were announced at an event in New York on Wednesday (April 9), which drew 150 attendees.

The 2025 Young Lions brief challenged competitors to tackle a marketing and communications challenge for WhyHunger, a nonprofit dedicated to grassroots food justice.

Finalists from the Digital, PR, and Media categories presented their ideas during live, eight-minute pitches followed by jury Q&As. Judges evaluated the creativity, feasibility, and team dynamics of each proposal.

The competition also introduced two new awards this year: the Titanium Award, sponsored by StrawberryFrog, and the Bold Impact Award, sponsored by OMD USA.

Winners from Amazon, Google, McCann, Weber Shandwick, Crispin, Initiative, Ogilvy, and David will travel to the festival in the south of France in June to compete at the global Young Lions competition. There, they’ll attend a welcome reception hosted by NCM and independent agency Known, participate in Cannes Lions programming, and represent the U.S. on an international stage.

Now in its 10th year as the U.S. representative to Cannes Lions, NCM not only runs the Young Lions competition but also facilitates jury nominations and programming in support of rising creative talent. Last year, the company launched the U.S. Lions Community, a program designed to connect Gen Z competitors with seasoned industry leaders through mentorship and live events.

“One of the reasons we lean into Young Lions is because NCM’s core business is cinema advertising, and the box office today is powered by Gen Zs and young millennials,” Amy Tunick, chief marketing officer of NCM, told ADWEEK. “Those young people are a coveted audience from the advertising community.”

NCM’s in-house Noovie Studios is also producing a 60-second vignette featuring the winners, which will air across its cinema network throughout June and “help the winners get a little famous before they go to France,” said Tunick.

Tunick said aligning the U.S. competition more closely with the global experience at Cannes was a key priority this year.

“We wanted the winners to be more poised and prepared to hopefully bring home some metal for Team USA,” she said.

Here are the 2025 U.S. Young Lions Winners:

Digital: Alexandra Jones, Eunie Jang (Amazon Brand Innovation Lab)

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