Loeries Awards: Nigeria’s Omemu, other jurists pick finalists

As the Loeries Creative Week holding in Durban, South Africa enters day three, finalists have been announced by the jury and the award proper holds on Saturday and Sunday.

This year’s winners will be determined by the panel of judges comprising select seasoned advertising practitioners, creative directors and heads of agencies, and one of the members of the panel is Nigeria’s Clement Omemu, the MD / CEO of Black Sea Limited who also doubles as a member of the Regional Advisory committee of the Loeries award.

With over 27 years’ experience in the creative business, Omemu, who is also the former acting Managing Director of Rosabel Advertising, joined about 160 other South African, regional and international judges to ensure that only bold, innovative and unique creative works make the final list.

In an earlier interview with MARKETING EDGE, Omemu said that many Nigerian creative works could compete favourably with works showcased at the past editions Loeries, adding “I was at the LAIF awards last year. The first five agencies – including Noah’s Ark, DDB Lagos, Insight and X3M Ideas – that came tops could favourably compete at the Loeries. I saw the works from East Africa; they were terribly poor. I saw some from South Africa, really poor. So why don’t we take this opportunity to show the world what we can do? It is not about trying to promote Loeries but I am promoting us first as a group”.

Last year, Omemu was a judge in the ‘Radio and TV category’.

Omemu who knew he was cut out for advertising industry as he discovered his artistic skills at the age of seven, further stressed: “I started drawing when I was seven. Before I left school, I knew I would do advertising. I was trained as a visual artist.

“When I first sought admission into the university, I wanted to read Law and my father just said ‘don’t waste your time with that. You are already a good artist. Why not just develop your skills’’, so I studied Visual Arts and Graphic Analysis in University of Port-Harcourt. I have always known I was a graphic person – understanding fonts, designs, colours, music – and using these things to communicate. When I completed my national youth service and came to Lagos, I knew I was going to be in advertising,” he said.

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