Coca-Cola Contest Young Talents
Short Story Award
From 2007 to 2014In 2007, Coca-Cola commissioned Off Limits the redefinition of Coca-Cola Contest Young Talents – Short Story Award, in order to update its appearance and content to the new times. Its structure and image were changed and, since then, the Off Limits team is responsible for its management and coordination nationally.
Therefore, Off Limits is responsible for rethinking and redesigning the pillars of the contest, creating new contents, coordinating the implementation of a new image, negotiating links with new literary partners and coordinating work team, managing the contest nationally, being responsible for production work, consultancy, dissemination and promotion, design and execute the media campaign in print, radio, television and online media, design and implement social media campaign, write, monitor, update and coordinate the contents of the website and manage awards, gifts, travels, meetings and events related to the contest.
The Coca-Cola Contest Young Talents – Short Story Award is an annual literary prize convened by Coca-Cola to encourage creative writing among young people. It can engage boys and girls in the 2nd year of ESO, provided they are not more than 16 years of age. The contest has calls in Spanish, Catalan, Euskera and Galician languages.
With over 50 years old and over 10 million participants throughout its history, the Coca-Cola Contest Young Talents – Short Story Award has become one of the longest-lived literary prizes in Spain. In 1961 was celebrated the first call then named Interscholastic Writing Competition, being renamed National Writing Contest as such known for over 40 years, and today called Coca-Cola Contest Young Talents – Short Story Award. The idea was to promote culture encouraging children of 13 and 14 years old to write. The initiative was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the time, called Directorate General of Secondary Education. Together, they decided to open the Coca-Cola factories to participating schools to show children an industrial process that was and still is new to them.
The development of this long-lived contest is another example of the boom experienced by the Children and Young Literature in recent times. For those teenagers who like to write, this award is an incentive and a way of showing the world what they can do; for their teachers, is a practical and amusing way to encourage reading and writing in class. And, as Laura Gallego, writer of choice for teenagers and author of the trilogy Memories de Idhún, says “You no longer feel a freak for reading and writing”.