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Dubai: The First Dubai Lynx International Advertising Festival on Monday opened with a challenge to people in the advertising industry: use creativity to make a difference.
"Creativity, when it's grounded in the essence and DNA of a business or challenge, is an amazing and liberating thing. And creative people really can make a difference. We're about building brands. We're about understanding brands. We're about making money for our clients," said David Droga, creative chairman and founder of Droga5.
Droga shared some of his agency's successful creative campaigns, such as the Tap Project of Unicef, which seeks to fund clean drinking water programmes worldwide.
Unlike many other money-making campaigns, the Tap project encouraged people to go out, eat and donate $1 for a glass of tap water that they get for free.
Droga said it is ideas like this which deviate from the ordinary or conventional forms of TV, print or radio adverts, that make a difference, create positive brand momentum and outlive any media budget.
On offer
"I really believe we have so much to offer than just print ads, TV ads, radio or digital ads. We are creative thinkers and we really understand business. We can come up with ideas. Ideas are a currency. They're not linear. They don't appear on a spreadsheet. But ideas make things happen. They create business. They create brands," Droga told delegates at the advertising festival.
Quoting the results of its study, the Idea Management Institute said great ideas "work much more successfully in the market than average advertising" and help enlarge sales of businesses.
"Brands like Apple, Dove, Lynx, The Economist, Mercedes and Volkswagen respond to increasing demands from consumers with a creativity that sells," the institute said in a statement.
According to Dubai Lynx organisers, the festival has registered 650 participants who are mostly from the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. The event has also drawn delegates from Australia and the UK.
The regional event, held for the first time outside Europe, is presented by Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, along with its regional partners.
It features a series of high-profile seminars, workshops, exhibitions and screenings aimed at giving creative inspiration, learning and networking opportunities to people in the advertising industry.
The festival also features works or adverts produced by some of the creative agencies in Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Tunisia, among others.
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