The Managing Director of Chini Productions and representatives of the annual global creativity award, Cannes Festival, in Nigeria, Mr Nnamdi Ndu, has argued that though the nation’s creative industry had recorded some growth in the past one decade, such growth are, however, not strong enough to make the required impact on the global stage.
Making this observation recently in Lagos, while announcing the introduction of the New Pitcher Awards, one of the programmes of the Creativity Week, Ndu, argued that though advertising agencies in this part of the globe, still find it difficult making an appreciable impact on the global stage, he however, described the situation as a vast improvement on what obtained about ten years ago, when he started his outfit.
“When we started about ten years ago, no Nigerian agency had even won an award on the global stage, despite being involved in advertising for over 70 years. that was why we adopted the Brazilian approach of training these young guys, taking them to Cannes and got them fire up.
“Now we are gradually having some agencies, such as the Noah’s Ark, that will not accept the status quo. And we are beginning to experience some change, though this is rather slow,” he stated.
He described the newly introduced Pitcher Award as long awaited since it would go a long way in complementing all the other programmes of the Creativity Week such as the Young Lions
Competitions, Future Creative Leaders Academy, the Miami Ad School Scholarship Competition and the Creativity Week Expo and Seminars.
Ndu, explained that the Pitcher Award is aimed at celebrating and honouring works from West and Central Africa, as well as the people behind them.
He added that as a way of giving international visibility to the people, agencies and brands behind the winning works, his agency had concluded arrangements with Lurzer’s Archive to publish a compilation of winning works in a volume that will be distributed globally.
“At Cannes, we will present a special Pitcher Awards publication, featuring a compilation of all the winning works to the over 16,000 delegates from around the globe, attending the creative festival,” he stated.