On 21 and 22 September the best in brand communication work in South Africa, Africa and the Middle East will be recognised at the Loeries Awards, to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).
The 2013 Loerie Awards ceremonies take place as part of Loeries Creative Week Cape Town, which runs from 16 to 22 September.
Over 4 000 members of the brand communication industry are expected to converge on Cape Town during that week to meet and network, as well as be inspired and educated by the power of creative communication.
According to Loeries CEO Andrew Human, the focus of the two red carpet, black tie Loerie Awards ceremonies is similar to previous years.
“The experience is primarily around showcasing the award-winning work. What I can say is that a lot of effort has gone into the after-party this year. It’s now officially called the Channel O Party at Shimmy Beach Club and we’re flying in legendary international DJ Norman Jay from London as the headline act,’ says Human.
Funk Productions will once again stage the two awards ceremonies, with Gearhouse South Africa as the technical supplier. Gearhouse is also responsible for the live relay stream of both events – to a venue within the CTICC on Saturday and to the Shimmy Beach Club on Sunday.
On Saturday 21 September the winners of the following award categories will be announced: Student Awards; Creative Future Scholarship; Print Communication & The Times Newspaper Award; Outdoor Media hosted by Greensky; Ambient, In-Store, Alternative Media, Direct Mail & Field Marketing; Communication Design & the Antalis Creative Use of Paper Award; Digital & Interactive Communication hosted by The SpaceStation; AdReach Street-Pole Award; Marketing Leadership and Innovation Award; Adams & Adams Young Creatives Award; Unilever Ubuntu Award for Sustainable Marketing; and the Grand Prix winners for that evening (only winners of Gold Loeries are eligible for Grand Prix awards).
The following category winners will be announced on Sunday 22 September: Media Innovation hosted by Mediamark; Effective Creativity; Events & PR Communication; Radio Communication & New Voice Award; Africa & The Middle East; Television, Film & Video communication hosted by DStv; Integrated Campaign hosted by Adreach; Hall of Fame and the Grand Prix winners for that evening.
Sign of the times
Around 3 000 entries were received for this year’s Loerie Awards, a figure that is slightly down on last year.
Human believes that the number of Loerie entries received each year serves as a good barometer for the state of the economy.
“I think the region is still struggling with a very weak and sluggish economy and the Loerie entries are a reflection that there is no real growth in the economy,’ comments Human.
As to which categories received the most entries, Human says the growth in categories strongly mirrors overall trends in brand communications.
“The Digital category is up by 16%, while Integrated Campaigns has increased by 29%,’
he continues.
“Meanwhile, the Ubuntu Category for sustainable marketing is up by a whopping 79%. Also encouraging is the fact that entries from the rest of Africa and the Middle East are up by 19%. I’m sure that as the awareness in the region spreads, we will see this upward trend continuing.
“This year, for the first time, we included Turkey as an eligible country for competition as it is part of the Middle East and should really be in the mix. And, because it’s important to include expertise from the other regions, we have included a judge from Kenya and one from the Middle East, in our judging panels. I expect that this representation from outside South Africa will grow each year.’
Earlier in the year Human announced some category changes, one being the introduction of the Effective Creativity Award. This award was introduced to recognise the link between innovation and business success. To be eligible for entry, a campaign must have won a Loerie in the past two years. That means winners from 2012 and 2011 are eligible, including Bronze, Silver, Gold and Grand Prix winners.
“There has been huge interest in this award and I think it’s a very exciting development which allows us to further showcase the value that creativity adds,’ states Human.
In the Crafts section, new categories specifically for non-English radio communication were introduced for Writing and Performance Crafts. Non-English radio entries that have flighted may be entered in the New Voice Award category or the main Radio category, but not in both (as was allowed in previous years). In addition a new Digital Craft category for Best Use of Technology has been added.
Campaign trail
Each year a leading advertising agency is tasked with creating the official Loeries campaign to raise awareness for the competition. The 2013 campaign – Be the Most Famous You! – was conceived by award-winning agency, TBWA \ Hunt \Lascaris Johannesburg and its digital counterpart, Tequila \ Johannesburg.
Be the Most Famous You! encourages individuals in the creative communications industry to be their own top search result by doing great work – work that stands out above the rest. This message ties in neatly with the Loeries Call for Entry, which closed on 31 May.
The digitally-led campaign uses intelligent e-marketing, supported by Rocketseed email specialists, to pull 200 preselected top industry names into their individual email banners and link them to a Google search result.
Says Human: “I think it’s been a great campaign and we’ve had a lot of good feedback. We’ve also used unique digital technology for the first time, allowing personalised messaging, targeted online advertising and personalised Google search results.’ Still on the subject of digital, the Loeries committee this year revamped the Loeries website (www.loeries.com) and introduced a new digital upload system for entries which allows entrants to upload all media – images, videos and audio files – directly to their individual entries.
“These changes have been great,’ reports Human. “The new website is far more informative, visual and easy to use. Similarly, our new digital upload system that we created in partnership with Sonovision has been fantastic. It’s resulted in a massive improvement in the management of the entries – both for entrants and our own back-end administration.’
Judging
Loeries Judging Week takes place from 16 to 19 September at Cape Town’s City Hall.
There are a hundred judges this year, headed by the international jury chairmen – Geoffrey Hantson, executive creative director at Duval Guillaume Modem, Belgium; Goetz Ulmer, executive creative director at Jung von Matt, Hamburg; Jason Little, creative director at Re, Sydney; and Debbi Vandeven, chief creative officer at VML, Kansas City.
Human stresses that the focus of the awards is to recognise and reward the best examples of brand communication in South Africa, the rest of Africa (including the Indian Ocean Islands and the Middle East). “The role of the jury is to reward excellence and to inspire greater things; the aim of the judging process is to seek out work and ideas that are exceptional, out of the ordinary,’ he says.
All work is judged according to five criteria: an innovative concept, bringing new and fresh thinking; excellent execution; relevance to the brand; relevance to the target audience; and relevance to the chosen medium.
Judging week is rounded off with the International Seminar of Creativity, which takes place on 20 September, where attendees will be exposed to the latest global trends in brand communication.
“We had around 500 people attending last year and are expecting that number to increase this year as the feedback was very positive. It’s possible that we may be able to extend the seminar to beyond a single day in the future.
“Our international jury chairpersons are all (by design) speakers at the seminar. This year in addition we have the CEO of Unliever SA, Marijn van Tiggelen, the head of Google’s creative lab, Michael Yapp, as well as Graham Warsop of the Jupiter Drawing Room flying the South African flag. It’s truly a stellar lineup,’ notes Human.
A really creative week
Included in Loeries Creative Week for the second year running is the Pendoring Awards, which was originally created to recognise and award excellence in Afrikaans-language advertising. The Pendoring Awards take place on Friday 20 September at the CTICC.
As to the benefit for the Loeries of holding Pendoring in the same week, Human says: “Rather than benefitting the Loeries or Pendoring for that matter, I think it’s great for the industry to have this very rich Creative Week. Holding Pendoring on the Friday adds to the overall experience.’
The biggest change to Loeries Creative Week Cape Town this year is that delegates will now be brought into one place at one time.
Human explains: “This was motivated by the fact that the biggest difficulty with Cape Town as a venue is that it’s rather spread out. So our plan is to create a “village within a city’ – moving our focus from one hotspot to another. Over the week, we’ll be moving from City Hall, to the V&A Waterfront, to the CTICC, to Long Street and finally back to the V&A Waterfront on Sunday evening.’
Among the events happening during Loeries Creative Week are the Egg Films Judges Wrap, Loeries Expo, Student Portfolio Day and Media Brunch. Although the Loerie Awards will remain in Cape Town for 2014, the Loeries committee is currently considering plans for 2015 to 2018.
The major partners of the 2013 Loeries are DStv Media Sales, the City of Cape Town, Western Cape Government and Gearhouse South Africa.
Category Partners are Adams & Adams Attorneys, ADreach, Commercial Producers Association, Greensky, Mail & Guardian, Mediamark, The Times and Unilever South Africa.
Additional Partners and Official Suppliers include AAA School of Advertising, Antalis South Africa, Aon South Africa, Aqua Online, Backsberg, BEE Online, Cape Town Partnership, Cape Town Tourism, Funk Productions, Gallo Images, Google South Africa, Graphica, GreaterCapital, Grid Worldwide, Hertz, Hetzner, Media Film Service, Newsclip, Paygate, Rocketseed, Shimmy Beach Club, Skyrove, Sonovision Studios, South African Airways, TBWA \ Hunt \ Lascaris Johannesburg, Tequila \ Johannesburg, The Rebellion, Tsogo Sun, Ultra Litho, Wesgro and Woolworths.
