Ironic as it sounds, but there’s been a buckling trend in the industry these days of manufacturers faring much better in other countries than they do in their own home soil. Proof of that lies in how well Chevrolet->ke199 seems to do in the European market compared to its standing over in America.

As such, Chevy has taken painstaking lengths to put more juice over in Europe by engaging young and creative minds to participate in contests like the Young Creative Chevrolet, a competition that challenges students to put in the time to insert the Chevy Beat- it's the Spark->ke3267 in this side of the world - into five different forms of medium. Now in its fourth year, the Young Creative Chevrolet competition has grown from being a modest competition, that features eight schools from eight countries, into a bigger and far more encompassing contest that includes 135 schools in over 20 countries.

This year’s competition proved to be as competitive as it has been since its inception back in 2007 with entries from all over Europe divided in five categories, including photography, music, fashion, video, and visual arts. In the end, the winners were all evenly distributed from a number of countries with Austria grabbing the award for music, Portugal taking home the crown for visual arts, the UK snapping up photography and France winning the other two categories, fashion and video.

We know that there’s some serious talent over there across the Atlantic, but we’re also positive that there’s a lot of young artists on this side that can do as good a job – maybe even better – than those chaps over there. It’s something that Chevrolet ought to look at if they hope to become bigger players in their home market. Just a thought, fellas.

Press Release after the jump

The YCC 2010 European 1st prize winners in the five disciplines are:

Visual Arts

José Rocha

School: ESTG-IPVC, Viana do Castelo, Portugal

Fashion

Jungeun Eom

School: ESMOD, Lyon, France

Music

Daniel Kovacs

School: University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria

Video

Hugo Charpentier, Adrien Badedji, Remy Mattei, Milian Topsy, Cyril Taillardat

School: Ecole Emile Cohl, Lyon, France

Photography

Rachel Astle, Kerry Baxter, Hayley Brooks, Lyndsay Eaton

School: Burton College, Burton upon Trent, U.K.

The international jury had a hard task when they met in Zolder, Belgium, on June 19 to select the winners among the many creative projects. The thumping Balkan beats and edgy designs pushed boundaries and enthralled the judges. Pasa Mustafa, Head of Digital Studios, Endemol U.K. said it was obvious "a lot of effort had gone into the projects" and the jury had their work cut out for them with "the great range of very creative and outstanding work".

8 Video, 9 Photography, 13 Visual Arts, 11 Fashion and 6 Music projects faced the scrutiny of an international panel representing companies as diverse as RIDE snowboards, Endemol and Lipsy. The jury was joined by Chevrolet Europe President and Managing Director Wayne Brannon, who was intrigued by the young artists' interpretations of the Chevrolet brand. Leading the passionate debates he said: "The decisions were tough with so many exceptional projects."