Not a few believe he had every reason to be so! The creative festival, the brainchild of the association, which had its maiden edition on June 9, 2006, is fast achieving the aim for which it was set up: rewarding and recognising creative excellence.
For instance, this year’s edition, the 12th in the series, has been adjudged by many as one of the best creative events organised by the association in recent times, going by the quality and quantity of attendance at the event.
Besides, the edition again reinforced the paradigm shift, being experienced in that industry, in the past few years. Status quo is being challenged, with creative power houses in the industry such as Insight, DDB Lagos, SO&U, Rosabell and Lowe Lintas, et al, being given a run for their money by relatively young agencies, such as Noah’s Ark, X3M and the industry is being seen as the better for it.
Interestingly, results at the event this year were clear pointers to the strong showings of these ‘youngster agencies’.
For the second time in a row, one of such ‘youngsters’, Noah’s Ark Communications Limited, was able to confirm the increasing paradigm shift in the nation’s advertising landscape, as it emerged the overall best creative agency at the festival, ahead of DDB, one of the creative heavyweights in the industry.
Perhaps the Festival’s highpoint remains the 10-year-old agency’s carting home of the much-coveted prize, Grand Prix for “Lost”, its much-acclaimed commercial for Airtel, thus making history as the only agency in Nigeria, for now, to win the LAIF Grand Prix back-to-back.
The agency, in addition to the Grand Prix, won six gold medals, nine silver and seven bronze medals.
Noah’s Ark submitted 60 entries, out of which 54 were shortlisted and 24 of the entries eventually won the awards. With its performance at the 2017 edition of LAIF, Noah’s Ark has set the record of winning two out of the four grand prix that have ever been awarded in the 12 years existence of LAIF Awards.
It will be recalled that Noah’s Ark had earlier won gold at the recently concluded Epica Award in Brussel, Germany with its Airtel “Lost” spot. The ad was also shortlisted among the 20 funniest ads of 2017 in the current edition of the globally acclaimed advertising magazine, Adweek.
The strong showing put up by X3M, another relatively young agency in the industry, this year, also bore eloquent testimony to the direction the creatives pendulum seems to be swinging.
The five year-old agency, led by a creative guru, Steve Babaeko, finished second runners-up, behind Noah’s Ark and DDB, but not until it had garnered a total of 20 medals: nine gold, five silver and six bronze medals.
7even Interactive, another relatively young full service marketing agency, also signaled the intention of the ‘newbreed’ agencies to take the nation’s advertising space by storm.
Established in 2014, not a few believe that with a total medal haul of 16: four gold medals, five silver medals and seven bronze medals, the agency is actually living up to its promise of extending advertising frontiers, hence its highly impressive performance within three years of opening shop.
Speaking on the development, the MD/Chief Creative Officer of Noah’s Ark Communications Limited, Mr Lanre Adisa, described the achievement as a symbolic milestone, noting that the success would not have happened without the support of clients who were willing to accept market-changing creative ideas.
The agency’s Executive Creative Director, Mr. Abolaji Alausa, described the feat as a product of immense support from clients who have done well to hold the agency to the highest standard.
and then