DDB wins best creative agency of the year

It was a day of pomp and glitz as key players in the different industries, such as MTN, FirstBank, Nokia, Guinness, their advertising agencies, brand icons and leading journalists, came together to acknowledge and reward excellence at the third edition of Marketing World Awards that took place at Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos, recently.

DDB Lagos topped the list of awardees, walking away with Best Creative Agency of the Year, which once again demonstrated how the craftsmen and wordsmiths at the Nigerian office of DDB are dedicated to towing the line of creativity and being enemies of the ordinary.

It was especially a big celebration for DDB Lagos as MTN received the largest number of Awards beginning with the Marketing Campaign of the Year Award for the Mobile Number Portability advertising campaign masterpiece, ‘I don Port,’ featuring leading actor and comedian, Hafiz Oyetoro, a.k.a. Saka. Other awards comprised Telecom Brand of the Year Award, Overall Marketing World Brand of the Year Award and Marketing Team of the Year Award.

Still on the local scene, during the ninth edition of the annual Nigerian Telecom Awards, DDB Lagos once again carted away both the Best Telecom Advertising Agency of the Year and The Best Telecom Advert of the Year for the same ‘I don Port’ campaign.

DDB Lagos picked the most coveted advertising awards at both award ceremonies, going by its profile as Nigeria’s leading telecom marketing company and a reputation for creative excellence nurtured over 26 years. DDB Lagos has created several award-winning campaigns for Nigeria’s leading telecom company, MTN, whose advertising account it has held since 2006.

The ‘I don Port’s campaign, following with which the agency emerged a force in telecoms advertising across Africa, is arguably Nigeria’s most sensational advertising campaign, with over 100,000 hits on YouTube after just one week of its release. It equally generated an unprecedented amount of debate and discourse in the media, as well as mock videos on the internet. The campaign is now being used as a case study at the School of Marketing Communications of the Pan African University, Lagos.

Biodun Ajiboye, secretary-general, Nigerian Telecoms Awards, was quoted as saying that, “… the telecom sector in the last 10 years has been the greatest contributor to the economy of Nigeria, in terms of micro and macro-economic realities.”

DDB’s dominance of the awards followed outstanding performances at several other creative fora in 2013, including the internationally acclaimed Loeries and Epica awards where the agency won Nigeria’s first accolades for the Girl Hub/Nike Foundation masterpiece, ‘Speechless No More.’ It is also expected that the agency will be enjoying its second consecutive win at the 2013 Epica awards for the campaign tagged ‘Active Rest’ for Mouka Mattress, thus cementing the agency’s continued presence on the global award stage.

The ceremonies for the 2013 Epica have been slated for India in January 2014.

DDB also featured prominently in the maiden edition of the African Crystal Awards.

Recently, the agency strengthened its reputation as Nigeria’s most awarded agency at the annual Lagos Ideas and Advertising Festival (LAIF), by winning multiple awards in various categories and industries, at the 2013 edition.

DDB Lagos is a full-service marketing communications firm managing a rich array of local and global brands spanning all major industries. The firm is the West Africa hub of DDB Worldwide and part of the Omnicom Group. It has remained a consistent winner at the LAIF awards initiated by the AAAN since 2006, to promote creative standards within the Nigerian advertising landscape. The agency has an enviable tradition and its current managing director, Ikechi Odigbo, has tenaciously built on the agency’s legacy of great feats and appears poised to transform DDB Lagos into the best and biggest builder of brands in Nigeria.

Ayedun is a marketing communications practitioner based in Lagos.