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Insight sustains dominance, X3M still impressive at LAIF award

By Gbenga Salau
21 December 2015   |   4:20 am
Insight Communications Limited demonstrated its dominance of the advertising industry in Nigeria with a strong showing at the 2015 Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) Awards held recently. It emerged the most awarded company for the year, with 25 awards, comprising five gold, ten silver and ten bronze awards. An elated Mr. Feyi Olubodun, Chief…
PHOTO: olorisupergal.com

PHOTO: olorisupergal.com

Insight Communications Limited demonstrated its dominance of the advertising industry in Nigeria with a strong showing at the 2015 Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) Awards held recently. It emerged the most awarded company for the year, with 25 awards, comprising five gold, ten silver and ten bronze awards.

An elated Mr. Feyi Olubodun, Chief Operating Officer at Insight Communications Limited, was quick to dedicate the awards to the clients who he said continue to entrust the company with briefs over the years.

He gave kudos to the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) for initiating and sustaining the awards, which, according to him, have improved the practice of advertising in Nigeria.

The secret behind the company’s consistent strong professional performance is the hunger to satisfy clients just as it looks forward to measuring itself against other competent professionals regularly, he said.

Olubodun stated, “The LAIF Awards is something we look forward to every year. It affords us the opportunity to have the industry undertake an independent assessment of what we have done for clients, thereby measuring ourselves against fellow professionals.”

He explained that each work entered by his company for the awards must first pass the critical test of public acceptance, then client satisfaction and approval.

According to him, “Clients’ endorsement of ideas and creatives is very complex, as clients trust you with their brands and pay for services. To earn formal approval of services from paying clients would always be tough, which is why I also commend the employees who give their all, functioning as a well-lubricated machine on a daily basis to achieve these”.

Recalling that his company has consistently emerged the most awarded company at the LAIF Awards for 10 years running, Olubodun attributed it to a strong system put in place by the founding fathers of the company – Biodun Shobanjo and Jimi Awoshika. This, according to him, “Has evolved into a functional system where everybody is aware of his/her roles and delivers on them for the common good of the business. The creative team, the account management team, the strategic planning team, each department brings value to the table to make Insight a great company. This is what reinforces our confidence that this dominance is sustainable.”

Similarly, Mr. Chima Okenimpe, Executive Creative Director at Insight Communications Limited, while applauding LAIF and its contributions to the advertising industry in Nigeria, counselled organisers to strive to encourage creativity with a view to “identifying and celebrating adverts that showcase true Nigerian narrative, so as to gain global recognition for the Nigerian ad industry.”

Also, X3M Ideas demonstrated its unflinching innovative and creative consistencies for an impressive third year running at the awards.

The agency’s entries across major categories of the awards culminated impressive number of nominations coasting home with three Gold medals, two Silver and three Bronze to emerged the 4th on the 2015 LAIF medal table.

The agency which opened shop on August 2012 barely a year then, recorded one gold, two silver and one bronze medals although it entered only part of its works done between August and December, 2013.

In 2014, the agency recorded two gold, five silver and six bronze medals carting home 13 medals. For both years, the agency stood at the No. 3 spot on the Nigeria’s creative advertising league table.

Speaking on the performance,  CEO, X3M Ideas, Steve Babaeko, expressed regrets that the agency has yet to get to its target of number one slot.  However, he was impressed the three years old agency has been able to make some good marks with the help of God and its very daring clients.

“I am impressed that the so-called younger agencies are making good marks against older ones. A certain young agency occupied the No.1 position while X3M is 4th on the table. This gives much hope to the younger generation of practitioners. We are grateful to God and our clients for giving us the opportunities and for believing in us”.

X3M ideas won a gold courtesy of its work for Diamond Bank titled “Door” in the radio category of the corporate Image segment. It also recorded another via its work for Etisalat Lagos Photo (Best use of Original photography) while the third gold came in from the radio – Ads that never ran – courtesy a commercial for Virgin Atlantic. Its works for Diamond Bank (Doors) and Etisalat’s Easy Cliq Cyber picked a silver media each respectively.
Similarly, the agency’s works for Etisalat ‘Prize for Literature’ – Short Film got a bronze.  Jollification Dog – (Cadbury) and ‘Just so you know’ (Western Union) both in the Ads that never ran category picked a bronze medal each. These bring X3M Ideas’ medal haul at the 2015 LAIF to 3 Gold, 2 Silver and 3 Bronze medal.

In addition, the duo of the agency’s talents – Jessica Iwayemi  (Copy Writer) and Uduak Akpan (Art Director) won the  “2015 Young LAIFERS” awards ahead of other young professionals.

It will be recalled that last month X3M Ideas won the “Creative Agency of the Year” award at the 2015 Marketing World awards. Earlier, in June, the agency got five nominations at the Marakesh, Morocco based internal ‘African Cristal’ advert

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