JWT Cape Town creatively energises the Loeries

Tasked with conveying these themes for this year's Loeries event, JWT Cape Town has developed a tactical poster campaign with a youthful look and feel to highlight these industry issues in a humorous, tongue-in-cheek way to promote transformation.

This poster campaign, which looks at issues pertaining to the ad industry, has been constructed in three phases - each describing the various stages of the Loeries Call for Entries campaign. The first phase was implemented in December 2002, with the second phase calling for the last Loeries entries, and the last, following after the closing date to promote an atmosphere of excitement around the event.

JWT Cape Town carried through this "youth" theme of the event by designing posters in the style of a child's colouring-in book. Each of these communicates messages with intended sarcasm that is designed to poke fun at the slowness of transformation in the advertising industry.

The first of these posters shows three African men, with instructions to copy the drawings on the sheet below to double the number of black creative directors at the Loeries. The second, features a typical "pale-male" Loeries judge with instructions for colouring-in the drawing, and a third sketch detailing the occupational hazards of life in advertising e.g. losing a fingertip with a blade cutter. The last two posters depict a variety of fun and exciting activities that take place at the Loeries each year, with reference to a humorous event that happened at last year's event to remind the industry of what fun it was.

Radio spots, featuring advertising industry placement agency owner, Viv Gordon as a headhunter, support this poster campaign. Aimed at addressing various industry issues such as SA's creative brain drain, the first of these spots will emphasise the job opportunities available in advertising both locally and internationally to award winning creatives. The rest will centre on other pertinent industry issues like youth, black languages and racial imbalances.

In addition to the radio spots, JWT Cape Town has extended this campaign online with a number of other interactive games on the event's website for creatives to interact with an enjoy in the months leading up to the event.

Says Wendy Moorcroft, Creative Director of JWT Cape Town, "The advertising industry needs to attract talented young people from the previously disadvantaged sectors of society," she says. "While transformation has certainly begun, the industry still has a long way to go in becoming more representative of the country we live in as black creatives are still in the minority."

"We are pleased to be part of any initiative for transformation in the industry, with the Loeries pointedly addressing the issues that need to be brought to light. Through our creative execution of the Loeries Call for Entries campaign, we believe that this campaign will take an important step forward in spearheading the directional change that is so much needed in the industry," Raymond Kieser, Managing Director of JWT Cape Town, concludes.

About the Loerie Awards

Conceptualised in 1978 by the Association of Marketers, the first Loeries ceremony took place in 1979. The award is named after a highly colourful, noisy bird, the Knysna Loerie (Tauraco Corythiax) which is found exclusively on the southern tip of Africa in the ancient Tsitsikama coastal forest. It was considered an appropriate symbol for the advertising industry, since the industry should speak volumes for the rest of the nation.

The Loeries is a self-liquidating event, of which excess monies are ploughed directly back into the industry in the form of bursaries for under-privileged advertising and marketing students via the Loerie Education Trust Fund, and as a donation to the Advertising Benevolent Fund.

The 2003 Loerie Awards will be taking place on June 16. For more information about the Loeries, visit www.loerie.org.za.