Friday, February 21, 2014

Jury for Cannes Lions National Competitions Announced

YThis year, Nigeria is expected to present teams in six categories of the Young Lions Competition, namely: Cyber, Design, Film, Media, PR and Print. The aim of the local competition is to provide a transparent and credible system for selecting teams that will fly the flag for Nigeria in Cannes during the international competition. In this regard, we will only provide administrative framework for the competition, leaving the actual decision making to representatives of the respective industry sector.
The PR Competition is being introduced in Cannes Lions for the first time this year and the first national jury president is Nn’emeka Maduegbuna, Chairman, CEO C&F Porter Novelli and other members of the team are Muyiwa Akintunde, CEO, Lead Consultant Leap Communications, Chuddy Oduenyi MD Compact Communications, Yomi Badejo-Okusanya Managing Director CMC Connect and Mike Obiajulu Meze, CEO Winning Concepts.
The creative jury will be saddled with the enormous responsibility of judging work presented by the Cyber, Design, Film and Print teams. The 2014 president of the creative jury is Chima Okenimkpe, Creative Director of Insight Communications. Other members are Tunde Sule, Creative Director DDB Lagos,  Sule Momoh Creative Director 141 Worldwide, Oje Ojeaga, Head of Creative X3M, Ranti Atunwa, Creative Director TBWA, Adereti Tiny, Creative Director Yellow Brick Road and Abolaji Alausa, Creative Director Noah’s Ark Communications.  
The Media Jury will be led by Jayne Okoronkwo, Executive Director Media Integra as president while members of the team will include Dozie Okafor, Head Planning and Strategy PHD Nigeria, Oge Maduagwu, Deputy Manager, Media Strategy & Planning mediaReach OMD (who are both past winners of the competition), Etim Ekanem Senior Media Planner Globacom and Ezinne Mbonu, Executive Director Capital Media
TheRoger Hatchuel Academy, a student training feature of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is traditionally supported in Nigeria by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON. The national programme includes a full-day of training by senior advertising professionals and various tests to select Nigeria’s student delegate to the Roger Hatchuel Academy in Cannes. The winner of this competition enjoys an all-expense-paid trip to France to attend the event. For the second year running and in line with the Cannes Lions directive, we have placed more emphasis on creative ability for winning the competition and have therefore set up a second creative panel to act as faculty and jury for the Roger Hatchuel Academy Nigeria programme. The panel is headed by Uzo Okoye, Managing Creative Director Etu Odi Communications, Yemi Arawore, Associate Creative Director Noah’s Ark Communications, Maurice Ugwonoh, Assistant Director Copy DDB Lagos, Yomi Omotehinwa, Executive Creative Director, Cosse TTL, Tolu Ajayi, Chief Operating Officer Lucid AV. The Roger Hatchuel Academy Creative Panel will also oversee the 2014 Miami Ad School Scholarship Competition for Nigerian Creatives. This annual competition that offers talented Nigerians the opportunity of studying on scholarship at any Miami Ad School campus of their choice around the world is now in its fourth year and some of the earlier beneficiaries have now returned on completion of their studies to contribute to the local industry.  
Closing date for the Miami Ad School Scholarship Competition is 28 February, 2014 while the entry for the Young Lions Competition and Roger Hatchuel Academy will close on 7 March, 2014. Winners of the various competitions will be presented to industry professionals and the general public at a special awards dinner on 22 March 2014 by the jury presidents.