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by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Loeries has just released its Official Rankings for 2015, its objective to weight the performance of agencies, agency personnel and marketers at the 2015 awards:

  • Impact BBDO Dubai has taken the top spot overall
  • King James Group has emerged as the most-awarded South African agency
  • Sanlam is the most-awarded brand
  • AAA School of Advertising is the most-awarded educational institution
  • Alistair King has been named the most-awarded chief creative officer in 2015, followed by Graham Lang (Y&R SA) and Mike Schalit (BBDO)

Note: please click to enlarge all the tables.

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Overall by Brand and Overall by Agency

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Agency by Region — South Africa and excluding South Africa

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Agencies by Size

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Educational Institutions

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Top CreativesProcess

To come up with its ranking, the Loeries offers points for every award: 300 points for Grand Prix; 110 points for Gold; 40 points for Silver; 15 points for Bronze; 90 points for Craft Gold; and 30 points for Craft Certificate. The full methodology of exactly how the ranking is calculated may be found here.

Insights

It’s important to note that different ranking lists weight awards differently. This list is the only one endorsed by the organisers of the Loeries, and relates specifically to Loeries 2015.

According to the Loeries, “the rankings now offer a comprehensive overview of the annual performance across the brand communications industry throughout Africa and the Middle East.”

I, however, would argue that the rankings more correctly offer “a comprehensive overview of … the brand communications industry … at the Loeries 2015”.

No ranking may fully quantify the creativity of every single ad agency; some agencies didn’t enter into the Loeries, others are constrained by budgets — small- or medium-sized agencies simply can’t compete with the volume of entries submitted by the large agencies. Even among large agencies, some would have assigned more resources to competition entries (entry videos, admin, entry fees etc) than others.

Interesting trends

That said, looking at the official Loeries Rankings of the past three years, some interesting trends emerge.

1. The Middle East is giving SA a run for its money

Impact BBDO Dubai is the highest-ranking agency on the Loeries ranking list. The agency won a Grand Prix for Loto Libanais’ “Black Cats on Holiday”, as well as a number of Golds.

Geometry Global Dubai (7th) and Havas Worldwide Tunisia (14th) also made the Top 20.

2. Network representation

The BBDO network has had a real impact upon this year’s rankings. Impact BBDO Dubai (1st), Net#work BBDO (10th), AMV BBDO (12th) and BBDO AFRICA (12th) are all under the top 20 performing agencies.

WPP is represented by Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg (3rd), Y&R SA (4th), Geometry Global Dubai (7th), Ireland/Davenport (9th), Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town (11th) and The Jupiter Drawing Room — Cape Town (18th) (in which it owns a minority stake).

Interpublic Group is represented by FCB South Africa (5th) and Lowe + Partners Cape Town (16th); Havas is represented by Havas Worldwide Tunisia (14th) and Havas Worldwide Johannesburg (19th); and Publicis Africa Group is solely represented by Publicis Machine (17th).

3. Ranking decline at Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town

Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town has seen a radical decrease in terms of performance at award shows. In 2012 and 2013, it was ranked first overall. By 2014, it had fallen to fifth place and this year it comes in at no. 11. Similarly, FoxP2 came in 8th in 2012 and 3rd in 2013. While the agency did not enter award shows in 2014, this year it was back, but nowhere on the rankings.

Nobody would argue that either agency isn’t creative, but both have been declining in terms of awards rankings.

4. Digital shops fall away

Since 2012, when Machine came in at no. 9, digital shops had been making gains on the Loeries Rankings. 2013 saw iKineo (5th) and Hellocomputer (19th) make the Top 20, while in 2014 Native VML (a full-service digital agency) made it to no. 7.

This year, no digital shop has made the Top 20 (Publicis Machine has come in at no. 17, but following the merger between Publicis Worldwide SA and Machine, the combined agency functions as a through-the-line agency).

Digital agencies have even failed to show in the interactive and digital communication category’s Top 5.

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Interactive and Digital Communication

The event organisers still have gone to all the trouble of listing the Top 5 Digital Agencies (using only the Interactive and Digital Communications category).

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Top 5 Digital Agencies

5. UAE, Kenya on the rise

Loeries Official Rankings 2015: Region excluding South Africa

The full ranking document may be found here.

 

Herman Manson 2105Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com. He was the inaugural Vodacom Social Media Journalist of the Year in 2011 and has, over his 20-year-plus career, contributed to numerous journals and websites in South Africa and abroad, including AdVantage magazine, Men’s Health, Computer World and African Communications.

 

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Published by Herman Manson

MarkLives.com is edited by Herman Manson. Follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/marklives

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