Hermaneutics, a column by Herman Manson (@marklives) Loeries 2014 has come and gone, in an avalanche of John Vlismas, balloons, anorexic-looking models in impossible heels, twerking and power outages. The Iron Throne made an appearance, too, as did Helen Zille and her Rottweiler.
Yes, it does sound as if hallucinogens could have been involved in coming up with a mix that… extraordinarily creative. The ad industry gets mad when we journalists mention drugs and advertising in the same sentence. As the blessed Joan Rivers would say: “Oh, grow up!”
Where Vlismas goes, drug jokes follow, as do references to devil worship and, not to box him or anything, dick jokes. And, apparently, a keen eye on making a buck as a presentation on his (booming) business at the seminar on the Friday made clear. It’s a combo that has powered Wall Street for decades, so why not?
Saturday night
The awards ceremony on Saturday evening started out with a twerk. Literally. It was certainly, err, an impressive display of the dance craze that cannot ever be unseen. However. Much. You. Pray. (To the devil, John Vlismas).
Followed by an avalanche of balloons. And an announcement that two balloons contain R10 000 worth of vouchers! Pop pop pop pop pop. BANG as one gent body-surfs a floor of balloons. No drugs in Cape Town, folks. None.
The funniest moment of the two-night event came when the audience realised the R10 000 vouchers were for free advertising, rather than a free shopping trip. The irony! Ouch!
Zizo Beda was the other MC for the first evening. As the presenters zipped through the student awards at significant speed (to a grateful audience), however, the power went. Apparently, the generators brought in from Joburg went bust (or that’s how Western Cape premier Helen Zille explained it the next evening).
DJ Ready D saved the night, as people danced in the dark. Yeah, it was a moment and it made the evening seem … deliciously human.
Oh dear #loeries pic.twitter.com/gLhVdZohMx
— MarkLives.com (@marklives) September 20, 2014
Dancing in the dark. My kinda people #loeries pic.twitter.com/TAPpHZl1eb — MarkLives.com (@marklives) September 20, 2014
Personal favourites
On the student-front, personal favourites included Pylon Typeface by Almari Carosini, North-West University (Craft Gold: Student – Print & Design Crafts – Typography) .
30×12 Exposé by Jodia Steenkamp also impressed and won her Gold in the Student – Collateral Design category.
Back to Vlismas’s in-your-face style of comedy. Outdoor & Collateral Media, or the bukkake (don’t Google it, kids — NSFW) of advertising, according to Vlismas, was up next, and proudly brought to you by Continental Outdoor. [You can view the full list of winning work here if you haven’t yet.]
The big winner of the evening was definitely Coca-Cola South Africa and FCB South Africa for “A rainbow for the Rainbow Nation.” It started its winning streak in the Outdoor category, and then just kept on going, taking six trophies and a well-deserved Grand Prix.
Another agency that made a mark on The Loerie Awards this year was M&C Saatchi Abel. Its The Street Store campaign for The Haven Night Shelter won a number of awards, including Gold in the Alternative Media & Field Marketing category. The project has clothed 3500 homeless persons.
Joe Public’s (crowd-pleasing) “Streetpole for dogs” campaign, done for Bobtail , didn’t take home the bone (it got a silver). The crowd loved it, though.
TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg’s campaign “Travel before it’s not fun anymore” for Flight Centre: Student Flights landed a Campaign Craft Golds (Radio Crafts — Original Music & Sound Design),among others.
Ogilvy Cape Town got the nod for this poster for Volkswagen, titled ‘Terminal Velocity.
Hats off to 140 BBDO for the Exclusive S.E.E.D Library — an Ubuntu winner that really exists and really benefits more people that the winning creative team. It’s a passion project for BBDO SA chief creative officer, Mike Schalit, and they are looking for more sponsors to support additional libraries. Hop to, people — and if you’ve recently sold your agency, you have no excuse not to.
I’m not sure why this one didn’t land a Grand Prix; it was certainly one of the most-integrated campaign winners and feels nearly as ambitious as the big winner of 2012 — Ogilvy Cape Town’s ‘Be the coach’ campaign for Carling Black Label. Nearly as ambitious doesn’t quite fill those footsteps, I guess. Either way I suspect Native VML is now properly on the awards map.
One change to note this year was that both the brand client and the agency were called out for winning, even if only the agency reps went up to collect the award. I would suggest that it might be nice to have the client up on stage as well, but as people are already dry-humping on stage to the extent that, should you throw somebody with money (ie the client) into the mix, real babies might just be made. I’ll stick to the twerking, frankly.
Ok, before we forget, there were three Grands Prix handed out on Saturday evening. One for Coca-Cola and FCB’s “A rainbow for the Rainbow Nation” (in Outdoor Media), another for Anti Est and Grid Worldwide Branding for “#Unlearn”, in the Design Mixed-Media Campaign category) and finally one for Mi-Fone and One Kingdom Creative Studio for “Oju Africa App” (in Digital & Interactive — Mobile Applications & Sites).
In spite of the power outages, the night might go down as the ‘vibiest’ in recent Loerie history. The DJ rocked, Vlismas did well and made up time lost with the power, and nobody got clapped off the stage as happened to Cape Town’s deputy mayor a few years ago (Cape Town now rotates De Lille and Zille at these functions — I don’t know anybody who would go up against either). MC Hammer didn’t even pitch.
And @CocaCola Rainbow gets the Grand Prix! I must have taken the first ever stage #Loeries group selfie pic.twitter.com/ANgHeroOO0
— Khaya Dlanga (@khayadlanga) September 20, 2014
Sunday night
The mood carried over into Sunday evening. People made interesting little moves walking down the stairs to their seats, swayed their hips every time they got up to greet someone and, on the odd occasion, just stood up to shake things loose as Ready D kept the tunes coming. Even one of the ushers headbanged at one stage before the bulk of the audience moved into the auditorium.
Vlismas arrived on the Iron Throne. If you don’t do fantasy novels (or series),this is not a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s privy. Vlismas soon called out MetropolitanRepublic (by name), still missing in Loeries action after it was stripped of its birds after last year’s event, and reading between the lines, not really entirely forgiven by the crowd or the organisers. Oh, who are we kidding? There was loud applause all around and more than one intern was pumping fists in the air.
Anele Mdoda co-hosted the evening – she was more like Batman’s Robin to Vlismas’s Walter White.
Zille cracked a few jokes and a few skulls, which was fun to see. She had brought along her son and her Rottweiler, to prove she owns a real dog — rather than one of these:
The Effective Creativity category, which allows previous Loerie-winning entries to be measured for effective business results, was won by Ster-Kinekor and FoxP2 for “Great moments at their Greatest”; and Johnnie Walker and the King James Group for “Johnnie Walker One Bottle.” Keith Rose, director and founding partner of Velocity, was also inducted into the Loeries Hall of Fame.
More favourites
Airtel Uganda and Scanad Uganda took a Campaign Bronze in the Africa & Middle East — Print Communication category for Send Money. I thought it was a really well-executed campaign. I immediately understood the service what they were selling.
Rescue Radio by Geometry Global Dubai for Sawa Mninja is a brilliant campaign that disguised radio ads aimed at abused domestic workers in the Middle East.
In Live Activations, independent agency Derrick took a Bronze for its Medusa campaign for Oakley. District 9 meets The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, to serenade cyclists. I thought it was pretty funky.
King James’ TVC for Bell’s Whisky — “The Reader” — was another firm crowd-favourite.
Heading in a completely different direction: check out Skrillex ‘Ragga Bomb’ by Egg Films (it took a Craft Gold,
among others).
The Grand Prix winner on Sunday night was Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg for Lucozade “Give me strength”. It was a rather fitting end to the evening as, by the time the final award was announced, the audience was rushing the doors. The truth is that Saturday night was fantastic because nobody had to sit through three hours of radio and TV advertising. It was all screengrabs and photos and great music. Sunday was a little bit of music, a little bit of Vlismas and hours of mind-numbing. I’m not sure what that says, except that maybe we are all human after all, rather than ad machines. Treasure the thought.
See past coverage:
Loeries 2013
Loeries 2012
All images supplied by: Loeries
Hermaneutics is a column by MarkLives.com editor Herman Manson. It indicates opinion as much as reporting.
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