AI Ad Competition: $50K Prize Pool, Your Ad on IMAX During London Film Festival
The Big Sell is the OpenClips ad track at Big Screen Hack London. Make a real ad for a real brand, and the winner plays on the Science Museum IMAX in festival week.
Scene select — 9 scenes
Every October, the film industry comes to London for the BFI London Film Festival. This year, your ad can play on one of the biggest screens in the city that same week.
Most ads get three seconds on a phone before a thumb decides their fate. Yours gets an IMAX screen, a full room and an audience that came to watch.
The Big Sell is the OpenClips advertising challenge at Big Screen Hack London 2026, the AI hackathon running during London Film Festival week. Films from Big Screen Hack’s last edition screened at Cinéum in Cannes. This October it comes to London, with a stage built for ads.
We judge it like media buyers: would it sell? Not budgets, not follower counts. Original ideas that make people buy, judged by a team that has spent 13 years buying ads for 10,000+ advertisers.
Entry is free. The only thing you need to bring is an idea nobody else would have.
Festival week. IMAX. Your idea.
Friday 16 October · Science Museum IMAX · South Kensington
Picture it: festival week, and the lights go down at the Science Museum IMAX. The night opens with the best work from Big Screen Hack London: AI shorts, AI-enabled pilots and adverts made in five days by creators from around the world.
Then the audience stays in their seats for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras.
One of the biggest films of the year and your ad. Same screen. Same night. Same festival week.
Big Screen Hack expects makers, buyers, distributors, commissioners and press in the room. For most creators, it will be the first time they see their work on an IMAX screen. In London, in festival week, in front of the people who decide what gets made next.
Make sure yours is one of them.
What you win
The OpenClips Award for Advertising
- US$1,500 cash
- Your ad on the Science Museum IMAX, Friday 16 October, before the films
- Featured on openclips.ai
And no idea goes unseen. Every valid entry is featured in the Big Screen Hack London Collection on openclips.ai, where creators and brands from around the world can see your work.
The brief: one real brand, one original idea
Every agency in the world is making Black Friday and Christmas ads right now. Show them how it is done.
- Find a real brand. A local shop, a startup, a friend’s business or a brand you love.
- Get their yes in writing. You will send us a signed brand consent form with your entry.
- Make them a 20 to 60 second ad on OpenClips they would run this season.
- Black Friday / Cyber Week (27 to 30 Nov): make people buy now.
- Christmas: make people remember the brand.
The question we are judging: would this brand run your ad tomorrow? The most original answer wins, not the biggest budget.
Imagine telling your local café owner their ad played on IMAX during London Film Festival. That is a story they will tell for years. And so will you.
What makes a winner
| Criterion | What we look for | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Would the brand run it? | A hook in the first 3 seconds, a clear brand and offer, a strong end frame | 30 |
| Emotion & craft | Story, consistency, sound, edit | 30 |
| Fit for the moment | Urgency for Black Friday / Cyber Week, feeling for Christmas | 20 |
| Reusable workflow | Could another creator swap in their brand and ship? | 20 |
A few things that stand out on a cinema screen:
- Surprise us in three seconds. If the first frame could belong to any brand, it belongs to no one.
- Be unmistakably you. Your style, your humour, your eye. That is what the jury remembers.
- Cast the model for the shot. Seedance 2.5 for long multi-reference takes, Veo 3.1 for shots with native sound, Happy Horse 1.1 to keep the same character across every clip, and Nano Banana Pro for the packshot and end frame.
- Cut a 9:16 version too. It counts toward “Would the brand run it?”
Jury: Isidora Matović & Danilo Radović (OpenClips), alongside the Big Screen Hack industry jury.
Start from a workflow
No blank page needed. Open a community workflow, swap in your brand and make it yours:
- Temple Courtyard. A 30-second 16:9 wuxia duel in a mountain temple, with you as the hero against two monks. Built for a cinema screen: swap the sword for your product and the fight becomes your ad.
- Box to Court. A 15-second 9:16 sneaker commercial: the box opens, the shoe hits a hardwood court and a city street, and it lands on a studio hero shot. Add one photo of your product and the spot is yours.
- Browse every workflow on openclips.ai/community, from product ads and UGC to viral effects.
Then take it somewhere nobody has seen before.
How to enter
- Sign up at openclips.ai, it is free
- Register for Big Screen Hack with the same email to get your ⚡1,600 credit code: luma.com/y32h9si8
- Join The Big Sell Challenge and unlock +⚡800 more
- Get your brand’s yes on the consent form
- Build your ad, share your workflow and submit from OpenClips by Sunday 11 October, 12:00 noon BST
Live support from the OpenClips team all week. Event credits expire when submissions close.
The rules, in 30 seconds
- Made on OpenClips. All AI video, images, voice and music come from OpenClips. Finish it in any editor you like.
- Real brand, real consent. One signed consent form per ad.
- Your idea, your ad. No copies, nothing you do not have permission to use, and nothing off-limits under the UK CAP Code.
- You keep your ad. By entering, you grant OpenClips (Coinis Limited) a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to show, share and promote your ad and workflow, with credit to you, on openclips.ai, social media, advertising, press and events. Enter as many as you like. 18+ only.
Why OpenClips is behind the ad track
We did not just put our logo on this track. Advertising is what we do.
OpenClips is built by Coinis, a performance advertising company that has spent 13 years buying ads for more than 10,000 advertisers. We know what a hook that stops the scroll looks like, and what an ad that actually sells looks like, because we have been testing them every day for 13 years.
That is why we built OpenClips: an AI ad studio that takes you from idea to finished ad, with the best video, image and voice models in one place. And it is why our jury judges the way a brand does: would this ad run tomorrow?
For creators, that means the tools, the feedback and the stage all come from people who make ads for a living. And this October, that stage is in London, during the biggest week of its film calendar.
Your turn
We built the button we needed. This week, you press it.
- Want to play first? → Start creating free
- Ready? → Register for Big Screen Hack
- Want to see what wins? → Explore community workflows at openclips.ai/community, where every Big Sell entry will land
One brand. One yes. One idea nobody else had. London Film Festival week. See you on the big screen.
Big Screen Hack is independent. It runs during the BFI London Film Festival but is not part of the official programme.
