‘Learn the hard way’ aims to challenge the misconception that disadvantaged young people don't have the skills required for professional jobs- a key barrier to getting them into work.

Our idea was to highlight all the amazing skills disadvantaged young people learn in the toughest of circumstances- making the business world take notice and giving young people much-needed belief in themselves.

Across digital, TV, cinema, print and out-of-home we bought to life the stories of disadvantaged young people and showed the skills they’d learned in conventional CV language. To reach the business world in a disruptive way, we created a profile inspired by a real homeless girl and asked them to connect in support.

Over 800 business people connected with the profile on LinkedIn, equating to a reach of 17 million. All this was done completely for free- by creating an ordinary LinkedIn profile for a completely extraordinary cause.

Assembling an outstanding team of actors was the most challenging element of our film for the Prince’s Trust. Without genuine and utterly convincing performances, the idea would fail to enduce the true emotional engagement that the campaign hinged on. Having a substantially minimal budget was a big hurdle and as a consequence all featured artists agreed to waive usage fees. In addition to this, we challenged ourselves to shoot 10 intense performances over 2 short days.

Our casting Director was key to our success. Special care and emphasis was put into finding unique individuals from around the country who were not stereotypical. Predominantly through street casting, Dan accessed kids who felt real and brought a degree of life experience to their roles, with two of the cast being foster children.

This combined with our Director's strong eye, opinion and ability to elicit outstanding casting performances helped inform the final selection of a stellar cast.

Over 800 business people connected with the profile on LinkedIn to show their support, equating to a reach of 17 million. All this was done completely for free- by creating an ordinary LinkedIn profile for a completely extraordinary cause. Those capable of driving real change connected, such as the Global Recruiting Leader at Ernst & Young, VP of Google and Director of Policy Innovation at 10 Downing Street. We’re now working with these contacts to get more disadvantaged young people into professional jobs and give them belief that their real-life skills count.