By Lukmon Oloyede Ahead of the third edition of African Cristal Festival coming up in Marrakech, Morocco from September 30 to October 2, 2015, industry experts across the continent and beyond are beginning to gird their loins for another gathering of cerebral streaming of creativity.
While there are plenty of ad award shows in the world today, very few are centred on Africa. The African Cristal Award Festival launched in 2013 is rapidly growing and becoming the biggest creative network in the continent. Bringing together the greatest African and international media and communication industry experts.
The reason for this headway, according to industry observers is because the Cristal Awards is attracting attention from across the region and from those looking to escape the long shadow of South African-based agencies and networks. The Loerie Awards, South Africa’s preeminent awards show, has set out to expand its pan-African base but retains its SA bias due to the sheer volume of entries from SA agencies.
[ad id=”187″]Therefore, the Cristal is considered as a counterpoint. The African version was initiated to complement its ones in the Europe and Middle East & North Africa (MENA) regions. With this motive, Cristal has since been challenging agencies from across the continent to raise their creative bar, to trigger greater success in bigger, more prestigious global festivals. The event provides first class networking and knowledge sharing opportunities over days of workshops, debate, exhibitions, screenings, master classes and high-profile seminars to an increasing large community of art directors, copywriters, media agency executives, clients, account managers, agency heads, producers and directors from all over the world.
READ ALSO Nigeria’s Creative Weaknesses Exposed as Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritius Sweep Cristal Poster Contest
Towards the preparation for the bravura event, a call for a poster contest was announced recently. An Ivorian artwork – “Pencils: all colors of Africa” by Arnaud Bedel from Drive Dentsu Abidjan, Ivory Coast was selected as winner by fifteen jury of creative that converged at La Mango in Lagos, Nigeria on Thursday, 28th May. Out of the 103 creative works submitted, Arnaud Bedel’s design – done in collaboration with Eding Labatut, a Copywriter edged-out four other works that made the final stage. Her design became the first to oust Mauritius creative works since the annual
poster contest began two years ago.
The maiden and second edition of the Poster Contest which took place in South Africa (2013) and Kenya (2014) respectively were won by Mauritius agencies: “Africa’s Sharpest Ideas” by Fabrice Thevenet & Vincent Montocchio from Circus Advertising Agency and “Faces” by Jason Goder (Art Director) & Suraj Saulick (Graphic Designer) from the agency P&P Link. According to the Jury, the Ivorian design won the contest based on its simplicity, insight and strong communication power that reflected the colour and diversity of Africa.
The winners will have free pass for each person from the winning team (maximum 2 people) for the 3rd edition of the African Cristal Festival in Morocco from September 30 to October 2, 2015.The package includes transportation (airplane ticket for one person), transfer (from the airports of Casablanca or Marrakech), accommodation and registration (access to the festival venues, official lunches, cocktails & dinners, after parties). Also, the participants will benefit from a 10% discount on the global participation fee for the winning agency. For the four finalists, a delegate pass for the Festival will be offered to them.
According to Anna Abudikhina, Development Manager, Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa for Cristal Festival, the concept of the festival is based on high-level conferences with prestigious speakers but also on an adaptation and highlighting of local and/or regional culture within competitions which reward the best of creative advertising. The event puts networking opportunities at the forefront of the festival where advertisers, agencies, and media producers can meet and discuss the future of their businesses, with a global and local.
“We realised it was time to celebrate African creativity in advertising and media through a regional award with international recognition. Cristal Festival events will always unite professionals of the advertising and creative world: the main agencies, advertisers, producers, directors, media,
market research companies, journalists, TV producers etc, in a convivial atmosphere for networking and knowledge sharing.”
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“I think the more the African agencies expose your works and complete, the more they can improve on their works. The Europeans are so creative because they have about 20 to 25 creative festivals and they are trying to do the best every month. The African festival is to propose this platform. It is really of West Africa, East Africa and the Northern Africa and not much of the Southern Africa because they are a bit different
