Young Lions Competition in Nigeria Kicks Off

Young Lions Competition in Nigeria started Wednesday 7th of April 2010 with a briefing session by the client, HOPE Worldwide, to intimate participants on the tasks that lay ahead of them. In the yearly tradition of the Young Lions Competition, Hope Worldwide was named as the charity of the year. The organization, whose identity remained secret until the briefing session, was represented at the event by Mr. Steve Emeh, Head of Communications and Public Affairs and Mr. Ola Ayemona, Logistics Officer. Also present at the session were several journalist from various media houses in Nigeria.

Mr. Emeh told the competitors that “HOPE worldwide Nigeria is an International non-governmental and not-for-profit charity that is part of the HOPE worldwide global network presently in over seventy nations and two hundred cities. He said that HOPE Worldwide provides holistic intervention services to Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in various Nigerian communities.”

He went on to describe the tripartite strategy which brings together the community, funding agency or organization and HOPE worldwide Nigeria and emphasized the need to retain Orphan and Vulnerable Children within their immediate environment and with a care giver. He said that this strategy has been applauded globally as ‘best practice’ and has helped in no small measure in helping the Orphan or Vulnerable Child to grow up within a family ambiance, inculcating the necessary communal cultures, practices and traditions.

The participants are expected to come up with media strategy and advertising concepts and materials which will be donated to HOPE Worldwide to enable it achieve its campaign objectives. Agencies represented at the briefing session were DDB Lagos, TBWA\Concept, 141 Worldwide as well as Media Reach OMD and Capital Media. The materials created during the competition will be judged by the creative jury headed by Mr. James McTavish, Executive Creative Director of Insight Communications and media jury headed by Mr. Tolu Ogunkoya, Managing Director of MediaReach OMD on Saturday 10th of April 2010. The winners from each category namely: Media, Film, Cyber and Print will represent Nigeria in the various categories during the 2010 Cannes Lions Festival in June.

Also taking place on the 10th of April is the Lions League Workshop and Seminars, Exhibition and Screening of Winning ads from 2009 Cannes Lions and the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy which is being organized by Chini Productions, official Cannes Lions representatives in Nigeria in collaboration with the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON). Students from several universities across Nigeria studying advertising related courses are expected to be at the programme. There will be a quiz segment of the programme where the winner will qualify to represent Nigeria at the Roger Hatchuel Academy session holding in France during the 2010 Cannes Lions Festival in June.

APCON to sponsor student to Cannes Academy

Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has pledged to provide financial assistance to enable the winner of the Nigeria qualifying contest to attend the Cannes Academy also known as the Roger Hatchuel Academy in France. The programme will take place during the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in June. The winner will receive $500 pocket money and will have all travel expenses taken care of courtesy of APCON. APCON has partnered with Roger Hatchuel Academy Nigeria for three consecutive years in the area of moderating the tests and selecting the winner and now it is going further to sponsor the winner to Cannes. It’s an indication of the Council’s unrivalled passion to promote creativity and equip Nigerian youths for international leadership of the industry.

Registration is presently going on for the Nigeria contest which will take place in Lagos between the 6th and 10th of April, 2010. It is open to students from ages 18 to 23 studying advertising, graphic arts, marketing, communications or other courses related to advertising. To register, qualified students should send their full name, date of birth, school, department and phone number to office@chiniproductions.com before March 24, 2010. The Roger Hatchuel Academy is a high profile one-week course in advertising. The programme is made up of seminars, screenings and workshops. It is anchored by some of the leading lights in international advertising. Participants are able to network with their peers from other countries. At the end of the programme, they receive a certificate that is of international value during a graduation ceremony. The programme is designed for students who intend to practise advertising on leaving school.

The Nigeria programme will include sessions where students are taught by senior practitioners from the advertising industry. The reason for this is to ensure that everybody benefits even if they don’t get selected to participate in France. After the short training programme, a test will be administered by the Advertising Practitioners’ Council of Nigeria, APCON, based on the programme content and general knowledge of advertising, to select the best student, who will represent Nigeria at the main Roger Hatchuel Academy in Cannes, France. There will also be consolation prizes for runners up and all participants will receive certificates of participation in Nigeria. In 2009, Opeyemi Adeniran, a student of Mass Communications Department, University of Lagos and Oluwaseyi Ogundoro, a student of the School of Journalism, Lagos State University participated in the Roger Hatchuel Academy in France.

Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions Festival CEO said, “The Academy is one of the Festival’s efforts to reach out to young people at the very beginning of their careers. There is nowhere, and nothing, to compare with the Cannes Lions as a learning experience for people starting out in advertising and communications. I hear it from young people every year: coming to Cannes changed my life”.

Part of the package for 2009 were tutorials by some of the top names in the industry, including Nick Law, chief creative officer, North America, of R/GA; Mary Lee Sjonell, executive creative director of Bongo; Alex Bogusky, co-chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Laura Jordan Bambach, co-founder of She Says and executive creative director LBi, Dean of the Academy was Rick Boyko, who is a director and professor at Brandcenter. Also present were Michael Conrad, formerly of Leo Burnett, who has also been a dean of the Academy and now president of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and Academy tutor Clive Challis, head of the advertising course at Central Saint Martins in London. Clive Challis will also be providing the students with a full week of intense training this year.

Cannes Lions official representatives in Nigeria, Chini Productions have announced the opening of entries from February 1, 2009 for the Nigeria qualifying competitions for Young Lions Film Competition, Young Lions Cyber Competition, Young Lions Media Competition, Young Lions Marketers Competition and the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy also known as Cannes Academy. The winners from each category will represent Nigeria at the international competition in France during the 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival from 20th – 26th June.

To enter for the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy, applicants should send email to entry@chiniproductions.com including their full name, date of birth, department, school, phone number (preferably GSM), and contact address. The Young Lions Competitions are available to teams who must be sponsored by their organisations. The application must be done on behalf of the teams by their company. However, there is no limit to the number of teams a particular organisation can send. To request for entry forms for the Young Lions Competitions, email should be sent to office@chiniproductions.com specifying the category of Young Lions Competitions. Entries for all the categories will close on March 24, 2010. All participants should have been contacted by March 31, 2010 with details of their participation. The competitions in Nigeria will take place in Lagos between the 6th and 10th of April 2010.
The Young Lions Marketers Competition is a new introduction worldwide. The goal of the Nigeria event is to select a team of two Young Marketers from a client organisation aged 30 years or under (born on or after 26 June 1980) who will represent Nigeria at the international finals in France during the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The Young Marketers Competition will require each team to have strong knowledge of their organisation’s products and brand objectives. Each team is expected to produce a Brief (maximum two pages) that will be presented to an advertising agency. For the purposes of the competition, the advertising agency will be represented by a select jury of Creatives and Strategists. Each team will also be required to give a maximum of 5 minutes presentation to the jury using Apple’s Keynote software. A maximum of 8 slides will be allowed (title slide optional – must form part of 8 slides). The jury will have a maximum of 5 minutes to ask questions immediately after the presentation.

The Young Lions Cyber Competition provides the opportunity for the new breed of cyber creatives to compete against each other. The internet has added new advertising options for today’s advertisers and the Young Lions Cyber Competition is an ideal opportunity for the best of the world’s young cyber creatives to showcase their talents. A series of training sessions will be handled in Cannes by Apple, Adobe and Getty Images. The brief will be presented by the client who must be a charity or public service organisation, whose identity is kept secret until the briefing begins when their name, objectives, strategies and target audience are revealed by a senior member of the charity. Participants in the Young Lions Cyber Competition must not be more than 28 years.

The Young Lions Media Competition challenges the brightest professional minds to demonstrate their strategic thinking and innovative approaches to solving an important marketing challenge to drive critical business success. Each team, made up of two participants, will be required to develop a media plan from a supplied brief for a charity organization within 24 hours and present in 5 minutes to a media jury, using specified software. In 2009, the team of Theresa Ogah and Dozie Okafor of MediaReach OMD represented Nigeria at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France.

The Young Lions Film competition seeks to discover the creative geniuses of the future. Teams of two young creatives will receive a brief from a selected charity to produce 30-second commercials filmed completely with a mobile phone and edited within 72 hours. The winning team will represent Nigeria at the international event during Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in June 2010. Participants who must be born on or after June 26, 1982 will undergo an initial training on use of software and accessories. In 2009, DDB presented the team of Abolaji Alausa and Adebola Babatunde to represent Nigeria at this event for the second consecutive year.

The Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy is a high profile one week course in advertising held during the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. It is attended by international students studying advertising, marketing or related fields. The programme is made up of seminars, screenings and workshops. It is anchored by some of the leading lights in international advertising. Participants are able to network with their peers from other countries. At the end of the programme, they receive a certificate during a graduation ceremony that is of international value.

Participants of the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy should be students of communications or marketing related courses, who have the intention of practicing advertising in future. Since 2009, Chini Productions have been organizing sessions where students are taught by senior practitioners from the advertising industry. The idea is to ensure that everybody benefits even if they don’t get selected to participate in France. After the short training programme, a test will be administered by the Advertising Practitioners’ Council of Nigeria, APCON, based on the programme content and their general knowledge of advertising, to select the best student, who will have the opportunity of representing Nigeria at the main Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy in Cannes, France. All participants will receive a certificate of participation. Participants should be between 18 and 23 years old. In 2009, Chini Productions facilitated the participation of 2 students (Opeyemi Adeniran, Mass Communications Department, University of Lagos and Oluwaseyi Ogundoro, School of Journalism, Lagos State University) in the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy in France. It was the first time in the history of the academy to have students from sub-Saharan Africa in attendance.

The 2010 Dubai Lynx Awards, the leading creative advertising competition for the Middle East and Africa, will be chaired by three top industry leaders.

Amir Kassaei, Chief Creative Officer of DDB Group Germany will head the TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor and Radio Jury.

David Nobay, Creative Chairman of Droga5 Australia, will chair the Direct & Sales Promotion and Interactive Jury.

The Media Jury will be led by Barry Cupples, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Asia Pacific.

"Once again, we are delighted to welcome to Dubai Lynx three highly respected international award-winning professionals to guide the juries as they continue to set the standard and ultimately raise the creative bar in the Middle East and Africa," said Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, organiser of Dubai Lynx.

Amir Kassaei has been Creative Director and Managing Partner of the DDB Group in Germany since 2003, an agency that he has catapulted out of nowhere within the space of two short years, transforming it into one of Germany’s most creative shops.
He is one of the most highly-decorated creatives in the world, having won over 1600 national and international awards and has served on the most noted award shows around the globe. According to the Big Won Report (2007, 2008 and 2009), he is one of the three best chief creative officers in the world.

"I am honoured and proud to be this year’s TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor and Radio Jury President. On the one hand because the Middle East will be the emerging region concerning communication, on the other hand it is like a journey home as I was born in Iran," said Amir on his appointment.
David Nobay is ranked in Archive Magazine’s Top Ten most published copywriters of the last millennium as well as being named as Australia’s most awarded creative director by Campaign Brief Magazine in 2008. In January of the same year, he was invited by David Droga to launch Droga5 Australia, the New York-based agency’s first foray into an international network.
During his career, David has been recognised by D&AD, Art Directors Club, New York Festivals, London Festivals, the Clio Awards, Cannes Lions and The One Show for a myriad of international clients, including Toyota, Lexus, Lion Nathan, Milk, the New York Times, Sony, Fox Sports, Intel and Datek Online. Under his leadership, Droga5 Sydney has just been named Agency of the Year in Australia by B&T magazine.

"Of course, I'm honoured to be leading the Direct & Sales Promotion and Interactive juries, but even more so, I’m genuinely intrigued: the categories are, in my opinion, where the most ambitious creativity is happening and geographically this is a region I've never worked in so I'm fascinated to see what will be revealed," commented David.
As CEO of Omnicom Media Group’s (OMG) Asia Pacific region since October 2007, Barry Cupples oversees media operations in 26 offices, spanning 13 countries.
Barry moved to OMG in 2006, serving both the media communications company OMD and the newly-launched media services company PHD. Under Barry’s leadership, OMD won significantly more awards on behalf of clients than any other regional competitor and, for the fourth time, was named Media Magazine's Media Agency of the Year in 2008.

"I am very honoured to have been asked to take part in such a prestigious event and I take the responsibility seriously to ensure that the best work gets the recognition it will surely deserve. Great work is no respecter of borders and I am really excited at the prospect of seeing this year’s entries and the solutions to business challenges that they will represent," said Barry.

"The world we live in has changed so much in the last 12 months and that seismic change is matched by the Communications industry where media platforms driven by technology and content and fed by a socially-aware consumer are evolving at a pace that is both inspirational and exciting for the future," he continued.

Entries can now be submitted online in the categories of TV/Cinema, Outdoor, Print, Radio, Interactive, Direct & Sales Promotion, Media, Integrated and, new for 2010, Craft. To submit entries or register to attend the Dubai International Festival, please go to http://www.dubailynx.com/.

THE CANNES CREATIVE LEADERS PROGRAMME TO LAUNCH IN 2010

Cannes Lions has teamed up with the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, to launch a brand-new venture, the Cannes Creative Leaders Programme, a two-week module taking place in Berlin and Cannes in June 2010.

During the first week, participants will be based at the Berlin School, one of the world's leading creative training institutions, which has built a global reputation with its innovative Executive MBA program to help creative industry executives lead for excellence in their organisations. There they will engage in six days of intensive training from the Berlins School's professors after which they will relocate to Cannes during the Festival week, where the course continues with bespoke sessions, group projects, speeches and lectures as well as the use of Cannes Lions' incredible array of workshops, master-classes and seminars. All facilities of the full week in Cannes will be available to the participants, including all Festival content, exhibitions, screenings, award shows and galas.

The cost is €7950 (plus VAT), which includes all tuition fees over the two weeks, a Cannes Lions full week delegate registration and lunches. Flights, accommodation, incidentals and other meals are not included. Class size is planned at circa 30 places.

Up to three free bursaries will be made available to professionals working in the field who are based in one of the 151 countries that have never previously won a Cannes Gold Lion. For a list of eligible countries, please visit http://www.canneslions.com/festival/creative_leaders_programme.cfm?section_id=77&link_id=360

"Cannes Lions offers a bewildering array of opportunities to learn; in fact the learning aspect of the Festival is fast becoming a critical element for many delegates by attending the 52 seminars, 25 workshops, master-classes and other events. For those who want to take their education one step further, we have teamed up with the Berlin School to offer a bespoke, intensive, totally unique training opportunity, in the classroom and at Cannes. We anticipate a lot of interest,” comments Philip Thomas, Festival CEO.

"Great work has one thing in common: leadership," says Michael Conrad, President of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and a former Jury President of Cannes Lions. "By combining a week at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and a week at the Cannes Festival, this unique programme will dive deep into creative leadership strategies producing creative excellence." For more information visit http://www.canneslions.com/festival/creative_leaders_programme.cfm Interested parties need to apply to cannesleaders@berlin-school.com.

A brief written submission will be required.

DUBAI LYNX WELCOMES GHANA, KENYA AND NIGERIA

The Dubai International Advertising Festival, the leading creative advertising competition for the Middle East and Africa, will extend in 2010 to also allow entries from Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

“The eligibility of these three countries to participate at Dubai Lynx opens up the fantastic learning and inspirational opportunities that the Festival has to offer to their respective advertising communities,” says Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, organisers of Dubai Lynx. “We already have developed strong working relationships with the Advertising Association of Ghana, Imagine IMC in Kenya and Chini Productions in Nigeria so it’s a natural progression to also welcome both entries and delegates from these three countries.”

Agencies wishing to submit entries in the nine different categories – TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Direct & Sales Promotion, Interactive, Media, Integrated and Craft - or delegates wishing to attend the two-day Festival and awards ceremony can register online from Monday 7 December.

The 3rd Dubai International Advertising Festival takes place from 14 to 16 March 2010 culminating in the awards ceremony and dinner on 17 March at The Palladium, a new world-class entertainment and events venue situated at the heart of Dubai Media City. The deadline to submit entries is 11 February.

For further information, please go to http://www.dubailynx.com/

MARK TUTSSEL TO HEAD CANNES LIONS 2010 FILM AND PRESS JURIES

Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide, is one of the most awarded creative directors in the industry and as the creative leader of Leo Burnett Worldwide he oversees the work of 96 global offices.

His work has garnered every major creative accolade, including a prestigious Cannes Grand Prix and 45 Cannes Lions. Mark’s professional success has been rooted in his belief in the power of ideas and ultimately, that creativity has the power to transform human behaviour.

Under his creative leadership, Leo Burnett has enjoyed remarkable success. In 2009, Leo Burnett Worldwide was the Third Most Awarded Network at the Cannes International Advertising Festival as well as the Network of the Year at the Art Directors Club of New York and the Golden Drum Awards. In 2008, the agency was recognised for its new-world thinking when it topped the “All Gunns Blazing” category in the annual Gunn Report. Also, the network was the Second Most Awarded in the world, with more creative offices contributing to its creative reputation than any other (27). The year before, Leo Burnett Worldwide won a coveted Titanium Lion at Cannes and an unprecedented two Grand Clios in Television and Outdoor. In 2006, the network was the most awarded global agency at D&AD, winning the first-ever coveted D&AD Black Pencil in Digital and five D&AD Yellow Pencils.

Prior to becoming Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Mark was Executive Creative Director of Leo Burnett London. Charged with the task of tapping into the creative potential of the agency, Mark led Leo Burnett London to become the United Kingdom’s number one creative agency and, in 2001, was the World’s Most Awarded. During that time, both McDonald’s and Heinz were named advertiser of the year in the UK by Campaign Magazine.

Mark has had the honour of chairing the world’s greatest award shows, including the Cannes Titanium & Integrated Jury, Eurobest, Spikes, the Clio’s, the International Andy Awards and D&AD.

This year, Campaign Magazine named Mark the No.1 worldwide creative director, earning the title of top global Creative Crusader.

“Mark’s profound industry knowledge, leadership expertise and extraordinary ability to nurture creative talent, are skills that combined with his passion for creative excellence make him an obvious choice for the demanding role of leading two Cannes juries,” said Philip Thomas, Festival CEO.

Commenting on his appointment as Film & Press Jury President, Mark Tutssel says, “I am delighted and extremely flattered to be asked to preside over the world's biggest celebration of creativity in communications."