There were more than 300 entries for the 16th annual Pendoring Afrikaans Advertising Awards for excellent Afrikaans and Truly South African advertising, with 66 finalists selected. The winners will be announced at a gala event at Vodaworld in Midrand on 29 October.
Independent Gauteng advertising agency Joe Public leads the race with 11 finalists to its credit. Draftfcb Johannesburg follows with eight finalists, followed by Draftfcb Cape Town, Etiket and Ogilvy with five finalists each. (In terms of agency groups, Draftfcb leads the way.)
The agencies Baie-Lingual Blink Stefanus, Black River F.C., TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, Net#work BBDO Cape Town, tbsp///beyond the line and MK each have two finalists, while Global Mouse, Volcano Advertising, NINETY9cents Communications, Saatchi & Saatchi, Network#BBDO Johannesburg and MetropolitanRepublic garnered one finalist each.
In the professional categories 17 agencies accounted for 52 finalists, while four advertising schools and tertiary institutions accounted for 14 finalists.
An esteemed judging panel under chairmanship of Leon Jacobs, executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi in Geneva, Switzerland, worked hard over two full days to make their final choice.
To facilitate the entry and judging process, the proprietary entry management solution developed by The Loeries was used again and all scores were recorded using Apple iPod Touch devices. This judging system ensures a smooth process and by using the Apple devices, error in the ballot counting process is avoided. This year the results were also verified by an external auditor.
In terms of individual institutions in the student categories, Northwest University’s Potchefstroom campus reigns supreme with four finalists. However, with three finalists for the Durban campus of Vega The Brand Communications School two for Vega Bordeaux and one for Vega Cape Town, collectively the three Vega advertising schools lead the way. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University bagged one finalist.
In the professional agency categories, newspaper and poster entries showed a marked increase, but in the traditionally strong radio category, as well as in the category for mixed media campaigns, there was a significant drop in entries.
The Truly South African categories for both agencies and students were once again well-supported and in the case of the students, entries doubled.
To see the list of finalists log onto www.pendoring.co.za.
