And so the Loeries came to Cape Town. One of the city’s great eyesores, the Good Hope Centre, underwent a massive renovation in order to host South Africa’s creatives for a weekend of glitz and glamour. The old dame rose to the challenge, as did the rest of the city.

Long Street became a party hub at night, while Camps Bay tried to do the same during the day, despite the rain. The red tourist shuttles were hijacked to ferry delegates, and most of the city’s clubs became venues for VIP after parties.Guests were treated to performances by Goldfish, The Rudimentals, Fletcher from African Dope, Lira, Jax Panik and others.

Comedians Mark Lottering and John Vlismas were the hosts, keeping the buzz going all weekend. But this was just part of the fun. The aim of the Loeries is to award creative excellence. On Friday 25 September 2009, awards were given out for Print Advertising, Outdoor, Communication Design, Experiential and Student. There were two Grand Prix winners. TBWA/Hunt Lascaris Johannesburg won the coveted award for their Advertising Poster Campaign, Cheaper than Money for the Zimbabwean. The campaign also received a Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix earlier this year.

The second Grand Prix was awarded to newcomer agency FoxP2 for its Architecture and Interior Design Entry. The entry in question was the agency’s office, which caused quite a lot of mirth among those assembled. A further two Grand Prixs were awarded on Saturday 26 September 2009. The first was awarded to Net#work BBDO Johannesburg for Virgin Atlantic’s Radio Commercial Campaign Ferret, Dancer, Dog, Child. This campaign earned South Africa the country’s first Radio Grand Prix at Cannes Lions earlier this year.

The second Grand Prix was awarded to Ogilvy Johannesburg for the Channel O campaign Young, Gifted and Black in the category Experiential Mixed-Media. The commercials were directed by Leigh Ogilvie of Frieze Films, who has since joined Terraplane. We cover all the film winners on page five, but it was interesting to see how many of the film companies popped up in unusual categories. Wicked Pixels were one of the big winners, bagging a Craft Gold in Digital Crafts, a Gold in Experiential Website Design, as well as a Bronze in Digital Mixed Media for their website. They also won a Silver Illustration Design Craft and as illustrators for Communication Design: Brand Identity and Collateral Design - Annual Reports, Brochures and Technical Literature for their work for Design Indaba and The Jupiter Drawing Room. Lung also appeared unexpectedly in the Illustration credits, having helped Fox P2 win a Print Advertising Gold and an Art Direction Craft Gold for their 24.com campaign. Similarly, Humanoid made a surprise appearance in the corporate ID category, where Johan de Lange won an Identity Programme Gold and the Creative Use of Paper Award, which was introduced this year in partnership with Sappi. Velocity also earned an Identity Programme Bronze thanks to some great design from Rex.

In the student category, two of South Africa’s film schools won Bronze awards for Cinema Motion Graphic Design: AFDA, the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, won for Men of the Number, while City Varsity won for Allan Shelley’s Harold and Nina.

In Commercials, City Varsity won for Zolna Minik’s Cowboy for VH1. The festivities on the Saturday night were put on hold briefly as a touching tribute was paid to the late Thabo Motene Marera, the Velocity Films’ commercials director who was tragically killed in a car accident in Johannesburg in September 2009.

At the Loeries press conference on the Sunday morning, through-the line and online were the dominant topics, suggesting that the commercials industry cannot exist in isolation anymore as the work needs to fit into integrated campaigns. Taking the winners at face value it was hard to tell who came out on top, which is why you need to refer to the new Creative Circle ranking system, which sorts the winners based on number of statues won, similar to the Olympic Games system. Creative Circle stopped using the old system last year which allocated points to the trophies from highest to lowest, Grand Prix being the highest and Bronze being the lowest.

Using the new ranking system, in the individual agency rankings, FoxP2 came out first, TBWA\Hunt\ Lascaris Johannesburg came out second, Ogilvy Johannesburg came out third, Net#work BBDO Johannesburg came out fourth, and Gloo Digital Design came out in fifth place. In the agency group rankings, Net#work BBDO came out on top, followed by Ogilvy, FoxP2, TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris and The Jupiter Drawing Room (South Africa).

For all the winners, please click here.

Sally Fink