In tune with the best

This year's Annual Loerie Awards were held for the first time in the Mother City.  Brightly coloured emoticons representing various aspects of monster-sized egos where festooned across a range of venues in Long Street –  and formed part of an engaging display that tantalised the locals in this year’s spirit of celebration of creative excellence.

The staging of this year’s awards, as well as the branding and multimedia components, were an indication of developing trends within in the field of advertising; where agencies build campaigns that are intended to become part of an experience of our daily lives rather than an interruption thereof.

At a press conference for the award winners, agencies reflected on the fact that marketing campaigns now constructed to incorporate both traditional media platforms and new media, with an interconnectedness that allows for a far more measurable result when assessing return on investment.

Other movements discussed at the press conference were the availablility of new digital mediums – with mobile applications being seen as having a dominant role to play in the future. This, according to the participants, does not signify the demise of other more conventional formats – which they still see as playing a meaningful role in integrated campaigns.

Within this more digitised environment, opportunities are evolving for specialised design, and the material being produced is seen as becoming more conceptual and more technical than ever before.

This year the awards saw newer agencies scooping prizes as well as more established agencies returning to form: The new Creative Circle ranking system was implemented at the 2009 Loerie Awards to rate each agency based on the number of statues won.

Using the new ranking system, in the individual agency rankings over both nights at the 2009 Loeries, FoxP2 comes out first, TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg second and Ogilvy Johannesburg third.

In the agency group rankings, Network BBDO is in first place, followed by Ogilvy and then by FoxP2.
This year’s awards created a buzz throughout the city and were hailed by the media and the participants as the most exciting in its history.
The South African advertising industry is finding its voice by creating and working in its own unique dialect – one that, from the excellent results seen this year, will ensure continued success both locally and internationally.