Uganda Advertising Association, an umbrella organization uniting Creative Communication, Advertising, and Media Agencies in the country has officially been appointed as the official Cannes Lions Festival representation in Uganda by Ascential Events (Europe) Ltd, the official organizers of the global Festival and Awards.
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global annual event aimed at recognizing, empowering, and upskilling participants while aiming to streamline and professionalize the global advertising and creative communications industry.
With this appointment, Uganda Advertising Association will be responsible for running promotional activities intended to encourage new and continued entries in the Festivals, increase the number of delegates, enhance the profile of Cannes Lions’ content and training programs, and endorse the Festivals’ value in the advertising community in Uganda. The Association will also represent Uganda at the annual invitation-only festival held usually between May and June at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, France.
ADVERTISEMENT
Charlotte Williams, Vice President of Content at LIONS while addressing Association’s members and the media during the virtual launch said,
Charlotte Williams, Vice President of Content at LIONS
“Uganda’s creative industry is a growing and promising space that we at Cannes are extremely excited about. With the Uganda Advertising Association as our Official Festival representative, we are looking forward to seeing increased participation from Uganda’s advertising agencies and creatives in the Festival and through this partnership, we hope to learn from Uganda and contribute to the Association’s vision of establishing a professional communication industry at world-class standards.”
Speaking at the same event, Frank Muthusi- the Chairman of the Uganda Advertising Association said,
“We are very excited and privileged to have been appointed by Cannes Lions as their official Festival representatives in Uganda because this will open doors to opportunities for many of our members, both corporate and individual, and it will strengthen the spirit of competition and production of quality creative materials for our members to be able to compete on the global stage, putting Uganda on the global creativity map.”
The Association now has the exclusive opportunity to sponsor and organize the Cannes Young Lions Competition team selection for Uganda, and the selection of the student representative for the Territory to the exclusive Roger Hatchuel Academy which is a unique learning experience designed to help students interested in pursuing a creative path in advertising launch their careers by learning from the world’s greatest brands, creative minds, and industry leaders.
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is considered the largest gathering of the advertising and creative communications industry
About Uganda Advertising Association
UAA serves to protect the interests of advertising, media, creative and digital agencies with the emphasis on professionalizing the communications industry to provide the best services to our clients and our advertising audiences. The Association was formed on 1st April 2011 by seven major agencies of the time; Fireworks Advertising (U) Ltd, Limelight, Moringa Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, Scanad Uganda, Star: Leo and Real Marketing. UAA has since grown to 13 corporate members and is currently registering both corporate and individual members.
About Cannes Lions
At LIONS we have over 65 years of evidence that creative excellence moves people, business and society forward. Cannes Lions – The International Festival of Creativity – has been championing creative excellence since 1954 with the goal of providing a global destination and the definitive benchmark for creativity that drives progress. Progress for people, businesses and society. Over the decades, we have recognized and celebrated creativity from a hugely diverse range of cultures around the world and showcased the power of creativity to the world’s largest and most powerful advertisers and marketers. We know that highly creative companies grow faster, more profitably and shift culture. It’s the power of ideas. They create new worlds from nothing.
Cannes Lions is undeniably the world’s most revered benchmark for creative excellence, with every award carefully selected by juries composed of the community’s own most admired talent. This is where the community establishes what’s creatively possible – and extraordinary things happen when the creative community comes together for the moment that is Cannes Lions.
But there has also been a growing call that creativity cannot only be tethered to a single experience. For the creative community, the journey and the pursuit of excellence exists every day. Creativity is hard, it requires belief, commitment, perseverance, culture, processes and leadership. It’s an everyday journey. And so, more than ever, creativity needed a home, accessible by everyone in the business of creativity.
This is why we have created LIONS – the Home of Creativity. Our purpose is to drive progress through creativity and support our community on their creative journeys, day in, day out. Our goal is to provide support for everyone in the business of creativity, wherever you are and whatever the shape of your journey. We want to create more opportunities to get involved too – on our stages – both physical and digital, on our social channels and in the increasing amount of expert content we are providing. We know that creative excellence can come from anywhere and we want our platforms to be open to as many voices as possible to come in. We’re open. Please join us.
Danze Edwin is the Head of Digital Marketing at Next Media Services. He is a former radio presenter on Next Radio and TV Host on NBS Television and NBS Sport. Danze is trained by the BBC World Service, Voice of America - U.S Agency for Global Media and DW (Deutsche Welle) and studied Industrial and Fine Arts from Makerere University. He’s worked for various brands and communication agencies such as African Woman Magazine, Fireworks Advertising, Brainchild Burson Marsteller. Born and living in Kampala, Uganda
