South African creative awards organisation Loeries has announced the appointment of an international digital jury chair to lead the judging panel in at its annual gala event in September.
HumanIPO reported earlier this year on the inclusion of a new digital category in partnership with the Digital Media and Marketing Agency (DMMA) for the annual Loeries awards.
Debbi Vandeven, chief creative officer at leading digital marketing agency VML, will lead the Digital and Interactive Communication panel to judge digital candidates.
The two decade-long experienced and award winning executive said: “I know that South Africa has a long tradition of creative excellence in advertising, but have also learned that strong digital work is still lacking due to a heavily regulated telecoms environment.”
She believes African consumer technologies have improved with regards to policy modification, which led to enhanced openness for international investment.
Vandeven will travel from the United States-based agency in Kansas to also appear as guest speaker at the International Seminar for Creativity, among other executives on the jury from companies such as Unilever and Google USA.
Andrew Human, chief executive officer at Loeries, said: “Vast strides are being made in the use of digital media within our region and especially in the quality and budgets of these campaigns.”
According to Human, a 23 per cent increase in digital entries let to the decision to appoint an international digital jury head.
The creativity seminar will follow on the gala event which will take place from September 16 to 19 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Jarred Cinman, managing director at the DMMA, said: “It’s awesome to see that the Loeries are attracting attention from an international digital agency of the stature of VML.”
Regional judges, including South African Alan Edgar, regional creative director at Ogilvy Africa in Kenya and Kalpesh Patankar, creative director of Dubai-based Y&R, will add African and Middle Eastern perspectives to the panel.
