This year’s Lagos Advertising Ideas Festival (LAIF) awards, in its 13 years history will definitely be amazing with full of glitz and glamour as everything around it this year is celebration of Nigerian culture.
The culture will be both in content and character as the dress code for the event is purely Nigerian. The jury for the award will perhaps have an eye in culture for winning creatives. The award which has the theme ‘Tori Tori of Laif’ is about promotion of telling Nigerian story.
But in terms of content, it will certainly be a keen contest this year from both old and young agencies that have created Nigerian-appealing striking Ads in all media platforms.
It will also be striking to see most Admen who have seemingly seen wearing suit as official dressing code for business adorn their Nigerian regalia for the award. The award is said to have become the most famous award in the advertising industry in Africa.
“It is one thing to imbibe what foreigners do, but if we don’t celebrate our own, who will do it”, the chairman of the committee, Steve Babaeko who is CEO of X3M Ideas told BusinessDay.
It is expected that this cultural identification and celebration will be sustained in the industry to deepen the knowledge of Nigerian culture. LAIF awards is one of the most consistence pillars of the milestone achievement of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN.
This year also, the jury for the award comprises veterans and young advertising practitioners with officials from Ghana and other parts of Africa. “This will be an exciting year when we see the best in Africa come to judge the best of work in Nigerian creative industry”, Steve said.
In the recent time of the award, clients whom the agencies work for have developed interest in the award to see whether their creatives will win awards.
In 13 years, the award has had much going for it in terms of organisation, participation and its rising profile and the organisers are doing much to sustain the feat as African respected award.
In 2018, SO&U, Insight Publicis, X3M Ideas and DDB won the highest number of awards.
While Insight won 24 medals- five gold, 10 silver and nine bronze medals, X3M Ideas won five gold, seven silver and eight bronze medals; SO&U won four gold, 11 silver and eight bronze medals. DDB won six gold, four silver and nine bronze medals.
Other big winners on the night Culture with three gold and two bronze medals; Noah’s Ark with one gold, eight silver and 11 bronze medals; Up In The Sky with one gold, five silver and four bronze medals; Etu Odi with one gold, two silver and two bronze medals.
TBWA got four silver and three bronze medals; 7even Interactive won three silver and four bronze medals; 141 Worldwide now Nitro 121 garnered two silver and three bronze medals; Leo Burnett claimed two silver and one bronze medal; while DIJO and LTC Advertising got one silver and one bronze medal respectively.
Michael Zylstra, the chief juror, said some of the works assessed were of topmost quality and reflected the Nigerian environment.“If I have to, by way of explanation, explain the works that caught our attention and would be awarded tonight was the work that really resonated from a Nigerian perspective and had local insight. It was executed in a way that couldn’t be done in any other country,” he said.
Zylstra, who is the Chief Strategy Officer of South Africa’s Dentsu Aegis Network, said creative Nigerian works will soon gain recognition at international advertising awards if the current level of quality is sustained.
Daniel Obi
