Our longstanding partnership with the BBC brings creative careers to life for young people through professional briefs, mentoring and industry experiences.
Together, we make the BBC’s creative work accessible to young people who may have limited opportunities to encounter the industry. The partnership helps students discover their strengths and explore possible futures, while enabling the BBC to connect with potential future talent and involve employees in meaningful creative education.
Real briefs, meaningful experiences
Our Creative Media Camps turn advertising challenges from BBC Creative, the BBC’s in-house creative agency, into hands-on learning experiences.
Students work in teams as creative agencies, exploring an audience, developing campaign ideas and creating trailers, outdoor advertising concepts and experiential activations. BBC professionals contribute mentoring and feedback before students pitch their work to industry judges.
Ideas Foundation designs and facilitates the educational experience, helping students navigate a professional brief, develop their thinking and communicate their ideas. Alongside creative skills, they practise collaboration, presentation and problem-solving.
Visits to professional workplaces and follow-up days at the BBC reveal the people and processes behind creative work. These encounters help young people understand roles they may not have known existed and consider where their own interests could fit.
A relationship built over time
Our work together has included projects promoting Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Glastonbury coverage, Radio 1 and dramas such as Noughts and Crosses, The Capture and Vigil.
The relationship has developed from school-based challenges into immersive camps, combining BBC expertise with IF’s specialist creative facilitation and partnerships with educators.
Sustained support creates space to build relationships, carry learning forward and bring opportunities to successive groups of young people. For the BBC, it provides a continuing connection with emerging creative potential. For IF, it supports the delivery and development of meaningful industry experiences.
Shared value through creativity
For young people, the partnership opens up opportunities to experience creative work and have their ideas taken seriously. For the BBC, it builds awareness of its careers and contributes to a broader future talent pipeline.
BBC mentors also gain opportunities to share their skills and encounter different creative perspectives. Reflecting on an earlier camp, mentor Finza Aslam described it as:
“a learning experience to see the thought process of the newest generation of creatives”.