In 2015, for the first time, the Loeries are coming to Durban. The awards ceremony will be held at the International Convention Centre Durban and Loeries Creative Week will take place along the Durban beach front in a ceremony of creativity and innovation.
What are the Loeries?
The Loeries are the most recognised standard of creative excellence in the brand communication industry in Africa and the Middle East. The awards and all the activities that go with them celebrate and promote creativity and innovation.
The Loerie Awards play an essential role in helping marketers, agencies and consumers appreciate the value of ideas and fresh thinking, by showcasing the value that creativity adds to brands and the economy. All of this activity culminates in the Loeries Creative Week, which will be held in Durban from Monday, 10 to Sunday, 16 August.
What is the Loeries Creative Week?
Loeries Creative Week is the single biggest event in the brand communications industry in Africa and the Middle East, attracting thousands of delegates from CEOs to advertising juniors across the region. It is a seven-day festival incorporating the judging and awards ceremonies, the judges’ seminar, workshops and networking functions. The awards ceremonies themselves will take place on Saturday, 15 and Sunday, 16 August.
The Loeries aim to provide participants from across Africa and the Middle East with an experience that emulates the Cannes experience. Andrew Human, CEO of the Loeries, explains that Sir Marin Sorrell, leading UK advertising CEO, says that the Cannes Festival provides entrants and participants with the opportunity to "get away a little bit from the hurly burly and have fun".
What’s new in Durban?
Durban will play host to the Loeries Fringe Festival, in which the local community can create pop-up events to entertain or express creativity, running alongside the main event. This year, for the first time, the Fringe event will incorporate crafts and food markets.
Durban will also see the winners being announced in two new awards categories: Service Design, which recognises brands that show innovation in customer engagement, and Music Videos, to recognise the number of excellent expressions of a band or recording artist’s brand that are coming out of the region.
The closing date for these and all other entries into the 2015 Loeries has been extended to Sunday, 31 May 2015.
Why the Loeries love Durban
Durban offers an all-year-round warm climate, a concentration of entertainment and accommodation venues around the venue, and extensive seating capacity to allow the Loeries to grow their anticipated audience.
"With Durban being situated a similar distance from Johannesburg and Cape Town, we feel that it will offer convenience and affordability to the majority of the participants who hail from those two cities," says Human.
However, it’s not just the convenience of Durban that made it the go-to city for the 2015 Loeries. "Durban also offers the awards a seafront strip, much like that at Cannes, where the advertising industry can come together and celebrate their achievements," says Human. "We’re looking forward to hosting the event in a city with such cultural and creative potential."
Why Durban loves the Loeries
The Tsogo Sun is once again the official accommodation partner of the Loeries, and participants will be staying at the Southern Sun Elangeni and Maharani, Suncoast Casino and Garden Court. The Loeries are also delighted to have their new sponsors, the eThekwini Municipality - Durban Tourism, Tourism KwaZulu-Natal (TKZN) and the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, KwaZulu-Natal Province on board.
"The City of Durban is looking forward to being host city to one of the most powerful and influential creative gatherings in the Brand Communications Industry," says Phillip Sithole, head of Durban Tourism. "The re-staging of the Loerie Awards in Durban and the Province of KwaZulu-Natal will be a major boost to the local economy, with a projected R100-million over the one-week period."
He adds: "The Awards will certainly culminate into one of the best platforms to showcase the city’s rich diversity and natural beauty and also present the opportunity to uplift the local creative industry and empower the emerging talent in the city. We anticipate that the influx of the creative experts and leaders from the continent will also increase the global advertising and filming opportunities for the destination marketing of the city."
In addition, the Loeries Creative Future scholarship, which assists learners from a disadvantaged background in studying brand communication at a tertiary institution, will be limited to entrants from KwaZulu-Natal for the three-year duration of the agreement between the Loeries and the City of Durban.
For more information, visit the Loeries website. Alternatively, connect with the awards via Facebook and on Twitter.