LG Uplus, Google launch second Uth Shorts Festival with AI filmmaking contest

Customer-driven short-form contest enters second year

Entries must use generative AI tools including Gemini

Top 11 winners to receive AI study trip to Los Angeles

An LG Uplus model introduces the Uth Shorts Festival. [LG Uplus]

LG Uplus has teamed up with Google to host the second edition of its customer-driven short-form video contest, the Uth Shorts Festival.

The company announced Monday that the festival, part of its strategic collaboration with Google, will run through July 31 and is open to anyone regardless of age or mobile carrier. The contest is organized around Uth, LG Uplus's Generation Z-focused brand, and is co-hosted with YouTube.

Participants must upload a short-form video made using generative AI to YouTube, then submit it through the festival's official website. Entries must include a disclosure stating the video was AI-generated and carry the designated hashtags.

According to LG Uplus, the inaugural festival last year drew roughly 3,000 participants who submitted a total of 6,884 videos. About 77 percent of entrants were in their teens or twenties.

This year's contest asks participants to use generative AI — including Google's latest AI model, Gemini — to create short videos telling their own stories.

In line with its brand slogan "Simply U+," LG Uplus has set this year's theme as "expressing your true self through AI." Entrants can choose between two categories: "Simply," in which participants use generative AI to capture their personal tastes, values and everyday life, and "Arts," in which they use AI-based voice and sound tools to create short-form content. Entries in both categories are permitted.

LG Uplus is also offering participants a range of AI-related perks. The company will provide online and offline workshops on short-form video production, developed in collaboration with AI-focused content creators, along with prompts and guides for making videos. During the festival period, any customer who requests a discount voucher through the official email address will receive a 10,000 won discount on a package — regularly priced at 19,800 won (about $13) — that includes a Google AI Pro subscription and a Domino's Pizza coupon. Customers who redeem the voucher can access the latest AI features through Google AI Pro, including Nano Banana and Veo 3.

LG Uplus will evaluate submitted videos based on relevance to the theme, artistic quality and view counts. The top 11 winners will receive a seven-day, five-night AI study trip in September to Los Angeles, including visits to Dataland, an AI museum, and Google's US office. All 11 winning works will also be displayed at LG Uplus's cultural complex, "Everyday Extraordinary Space by U+."

Excellence award winners (six recipients) and encouragement award winners (10 recipients) will receive prize money of 400,000 won and 200,000 won, respectively. All award winners — grand prize, excellence and encouragement — will also receive a jointly issued certificate from LG Uplus and Google, the "U+ X Google Certificate." Every participant, regardless of placement, will receive a coupon for a Mega Coffee iced Americano. Winners will be announced in August on the Uth official website.

LG Uplus said it plans to continue expanding programs under the Uth brand that allow customers to directly experience and apply new technologies.

Jang Jun-young, head of LG Uplus's marketing group, said the Uth Shorts Festival is "a customer participation program where Generation Z customers can directly experience new technologies and create their own content." He added that the company would "continue to provide diverse experiences so that customers can use AI more easily and naturally, and grow in their respective fields."

chami@heraldcorp.com