Entries to 2015 Annual AdFocus Awards open
The 2015 Annual AdFocus Awards have opened for entries. The Financial Mail’s AdFocus Awards have been a highlight of the advertising and communications calendar since 1990. Last year, for the first time, they were merged with those of Jeremy Maggs’ The Annual.
Questionnaires can be found on the Annual AdFocus Awards website, www.adfocus.co.za, and the Redzone website (look for the AdFocus button).
The deadline for entries is 12h00 Monday, 31 August 2015.
The 2015 Awards are:
Agency Awards:
Overall Agency of the Year (from any agency category)
Small Advertising Agency of the Year
Medium Advertising Agency of the Year
Large Advertising Agency of the Year
Media Agency of the Year
Branding and Design Agency of the Year
Digital Agency of the Year
Specialist Agency of the Year
African Agency Network of the Year
Individual Awards
Partnership of the Year
Lifetime Achievement Award
Industry Leader of the Year
New Broom Award
Student of the Year
The former Advertising Agency Award has been expanded into three categories: small, medium and large.
The former Agencies’ Agency of the Year has been incorporated into a new award, for overall Agency of the Year. The winner will be decided jointly by the AdFocus jury and by agency votes. The award may be won by an agency from any SA awards category.
Entries for agency awards will be judged on performance over the period July 2014-June 2015. The exception is Media Agency of the Year, for which the assessment period is May 2014-April 2015.
This year will include Loeries 2014 and 2015 results. This is a once-off to accommodate the earlier staging of this year’s event, in August.
Questionnaires must be completed online.
As in previous years, agency awards will be scored on new business, business retention, client relationships, awards, industry recognition and transformation.
The judging process, in which jurors score in secret, will once again be audited by Deloitte.
The jury chairman is Festus Masekwameng, managing partner of MKT Media and former chairman of the Loerie Awards.
Other members of the main jury are:
Prof Nicola Kleyn – Dean, Gordon Institute of Business Science
Gary Leih – CEO, OFyt
Denford Magora – CEO, The Jupiter Drawing Room (Zimbabwe) & Partner
Sean McCoy – CE, HKLM
Zibusiso Mkhwanazi – CEO, Avatar
Jerry Mpufane – Group MD, M&C Saatchi Abel
Kagiso Musi – MD, Brand Union SA
Julian Neuburger – CEO, Mediacom SA
Emmet O’Hanlon – CEO, DDB SA
Craig Page-Lee – MD, Posterscope SA
Vanessa Pearson – ECD, House of Brave
Richard Procter – Joint MD, Vizeum SA
Thulani Sibeko – Managing executive, group marketing, communications and corporate affairs, Nedbank
Andy Sutcliffe – CEO, 34 Degrees
Specialist jurors will be added for two awards: Media Agency of the Year and Student of the Year. So far, Patrick Conroy, MD of e.SAT TV, has agreed to sit on the media panel. The student jury will be joined by Pepe Marais, creative head of Joe Public, and Matthys Esterhuysen, senior strategist at Hellocomputer.
The editorial theme of this year’s Annual AdFocus publication is the growing importance of integration and collaboration in advertising and communications. There is growing acceptance that agencies do not have all the answers and need to look at outsourcing skills. Internally, many agencies are restructuring to achieve better cross-team collaboration.
