African creative powerhouse, X3M Ideas has once again, placed Nigeria’s name on the global creative stage, having won Gold Medal at the prestigious Luum Awards held recently. The agency which is one of the few agencies on the continent that had a good showing at Luum Awards received the Gold for its work ‘Suicide Note’ created for the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI).
The campaign was created with the objective to help people dealing with mental health issues in Nigeria.
Taking to his social media pages to write on the award, Steve Babaeko, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Creative Officer of X3m Ideas noted, “#Advertising is a powerful tool and with that power comes the responsibility to use it for good and to create positive social change.
“Congratulations to the amazing team @x3mideas and our partner in progress @mentallyawareng we did it!”
For years, X3M Ideas has been churning out global-award-winning social impact works that have had wide-reaching impacts globally. The agency is also the force behind the viral groundbreaking Nirvana Water ‘Headline of Innocence’ campaign that broke out at this year’s International Children’s Day campaign. The campaign which has been featured on the prestigious ‘Ads of the World’ and ‘AdForum’ has generated so much talk and traction for passing a sensitive message in a simple but very effective manner.
Just last year, the trailblazing agency, won bronze at the Lisbon Advertising Festival for its International Women’s Day press campaign, ‘Make History Equal For Women.’ X3m Ideas was the only African agency to win an award at the festival and one of the 17 bronze winners in the international competition. The bronze-winning work ‘Make History Equal For Women’ was selected as one of the 62 ads from across the globe for the 2020 Great Ads For Good Exhibition; and has been celebrated lots of times in the advertising community.
The agency also scored three finalist entries which included ‘Mum Hotline’ – its breath-taking integrated campaign for Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) and ‘Forgiven’ – X3M’s widely acclaimed social media campaign for Easter, all selected by an executive jury consisting of high profile, global creative leaders such as David Kolbusz, the Chief Creative Officer of Droga5.
In 2018, the agency’s self-sponsored anti-depression social service advertising tagged ‘Look Beyond’, done in support of Lagos State’s effort at fighting the sudden increase in the rate of suicides in the country, also won a remarkable grand Cristal at the prestigious Cristal Awards held in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The campaign, which featured a series of ads, including online film, is one of the agency’s deliberate attempts to be a social contributor and dependable voice in supporting the Lagos State Government to ensure a safe society for all. The campaign, which won a Grand Cristal, an equivalent of a Grand Prix in the social/CSR category, was a major voice that permeated the social media, youth-focused TV channels to drum up support for the Lagos State government’s battle cry against suicides in the state and the country at large. The short “socialmercial” which was heavy on HipTV also trended heavily on youtube, Twitter and other social media platforms, discouraging youths from the growing but painful decision to ‘end it all.’ To further consolidate its winning, Look Beyond, the agency’s social cause campaign picked four other awards, including a gold, a silver and two bronze medals to advance the cause of Nigerian advertising on the global arena.
X3m Ideas latest feat at the Luum Awards has gone on to show that asides its consistent CSR drive targeted at bettering peoples’ lives in the society, the agency is deliberate in churning out award-winning social impact works that win beyond the awards arena and impact lives positively across the globe.
LUUM Awards is the first global festival dedicated to creativity, exclusively rewarding messages that seek to awaken a social, civic or environmental consciousness so as to make the world a better place
Lu´um means “world” or “fertile land” in the Mayan language. This beautiful millennial culture, full of respect and love for the land and its communities, was one of the organisers’ sources of inspiration for the festival’s image; because, “like the Mayans, we also seek fertile ground, to sow positive seeds on a planet that desperately needs them,” the organisers noted.
LUUM only awards Gold medals, as there are no second or third place awards. That is to say that the festival only awards medals to the best of the best. It also promotes equality as there are no jury presidents, no academic hierarchies. All the judges are top-tier and their evaluations are made at different times during the judging period.
It is also democratic as all participants, regardless of size, brand or nationality, are given the same amount of opportunities to upload their entries at no cost; fair, as Luum meets gender quotas: 50% of the judges are men and 50% of the judges are women, and diverse as the judges’ panel is composed primarily of talented global advertising and marketing professionals from well-known associations and communities, however, governmental and non-governmental entities may also participate.
Luum Awards is the only festival in the world to reward messages on social, environmental and animal rights awareness.