Involvement Of Nigerians In Organising Loeries Cannot Compromise Its Transparency – Lanre Adisa
By Ntia Usukuma
If there are some minds who may suspect that there is a way the involvement of our industry players in the Loeries committee, can influence the performance of their agencies, those individuals should promptly drop such thoughts in the nearest trash can.
Recently, Lanre Adisa, Founder/Chief Creative Officer, Noah’s Ark Communications who is now a member of Loeries’ highest organising body, took time to respond to questions on the possibility of negative perceptions or insinuations, if his agency maintains a fantastic performance in the awards.
Adisa spoke exclusively to Brand Communicator last Tuesday at Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja during the visit of The Loeries team to Nigeria led by its Chief Executive Officer, Preetesh Sewraj.
He explained that those who know the workings and record of the Loeries festival will never imagine that.
His words, “Let me explain the way it works, Yes, the committee, is responsible for organising the festival. Meaning everything involving entries, where it will happen and even choosing the juries. Of course, some members of the committee are appointed to the jurors.
“All through there is strict fairness and transparency. Now if there’s any work that’s coming from my agency, I cannot judge it and I cannot even sit in judgement with other people. I must promptly excuse myself since l have to abstain from judging that piece of work and the whole segment. It is that strict, so the chance of anything funny happening is almost non-existent”.
Speaking earlier in his opening remarks, Preetesh Sewraj, Chief Executive Officer of Loeries expressed great excitement that his trip to Lagos and two other cities in Africa planned two years ago but truncated by COVID 19 is finally taking place.
During the panel discussion on the “The Future of Creativity” that had Nnenna Onyewuchi, Co-Founder/Chief Growth Officer, Halo Invest; Lanre Adisa; Preetesh Sewraj and Steve Babaeko, President, AAAN as discussants, a lot of vital issues affecting creativity in Nigeria were dissected. The threat from fintech companies leading to massive loss of talents in the industry was extensively discussed.
It became obvious that apart from the banking sector, the advertising industry is also experiencing the cannibalising impact of Nigeria’s burgeoning fintech industry. Issues like limited Collaborations, limited opportunities for rewarding creative excellence adequately among other issues were extensively discussed.