CYBERTORIAL: Three of South Africa’s expert Cannes Lions judges, guided by one of South Africa’s best known branding and advertising gurus, will be sitting on a panel at the exclusive Learning from Cannes Lions breakfast event on 2 October, sharing their expertise with the industry. Brett Morris for the Outdoor Category, Mariana O’Kelley for the Radio Category, Kirk Gainsford for the Film Category and Andy ‘head and shoulders above the rest’ Rice as the facilitator, will take to the stage to teach you all that you need to know about being one of the most creative creatives in the world.
Brett Morris
Morris stumbled into a career as a copywriter while fleeing a career in law. After eight years in the business he was appointed executive creative director of Draftfcb. Under his leadership, the agency won more awards than ever before in its 80-year history, including South Africa’s first ever Cannes Grand Prix. He also has 14 gold Loeries, 15 Cannes Lions, 7 Clios, 5 D&AD entries and 6 One Show merits to his credit. After a brief sojourn he rejoined Draftfcb as chief creative officer for South Africa in 2009 and was elected chairperson of South Africa’s creative industry body, the Creative Circle, in 2010 and was ranked as one of the top five creative directors in the country by his peers. Brett is also a published fiction and feature film scriptwriter.
Mariana O’Kelly
Mariana O’Kelly started her career at Lindsey Smithers FCB as an assistant art director mounting layouts for a year. She moved to London a year later and worked on brands like Cable TV and Budweiser. Over the last 19 years she’s worked at SA’s most prestigious agencies including Hunt Lascaris, Jupiter Drawing Room and Net#work BBDO. Mariana joined Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) Johannesburg as a creative director in 2011 and was promoted two years later to joint executive creative director of Ogilvy, the largest agency in South Africa. Career highlights include winning two D&AD pencils for multi-platform branding in 2012 for M-Net MK Music channel. Recently Mariana and her team made history by winning the first ever Cannes Radio Grand Prix for Ogilvy Worldwide with a campaign for Lucozade. Ogilvy Johannesburg was also awarded as top creative agency in SA at Cannes for 2014.
Kirk Gainsford
Gainsford joined Lowe Cape Town in 2007 and quickly worked his way up to the position of ECD. In this role Gainsford has been the creative architect for some of South Africa’s most-loved campaigns such as the Hansa Vuyo and Kiss of the Saaz Hop series. His work on the Cape Times has seen the last three campaigns for the brand feature at the prestigious D&AD awards. Most recently, he was the ECD behind the Cape Times ‘Selfies’ campaign, one of the best performing print campaigns to come out of South Africa in recent years. The campaign, which was named one of the top 15 print campaigns in the world last year, contributed to him being selected to judge at Cannes for the second time in his career. His achievements have seen him being invited to join the Creative Circle – an honour bestowed on the country’s most respected creative directors.
Andy Rice
Andy Rice is a strategist, a speaker and a writer. As a strategist he headed up Ogilvy Johannesburg’s account planning department before founding Yellowwood, a specialist brand strategy consultancy that grew to become South Africa’s leader in its field. Yellowwood is now part of the TBWA empire, with Andy continuing to stay involved as Chairman. As a speaker he combines his professional brand consulting experience with his reputation as the co-host of Talk Radio 702’s popular “AdFeature with Andy Rice” to create keynote presentations that memorably fuse wit with wisdom. As a writer he has contributed numerous articles and opinion pieces to marketing journals and publications such as The Annual, The Journal, AdVantage and Brands and Branding in South Africa.
Taking place on 2 October at 08h30 at Ster-Kinekor Cedar Square in Johannesburg and Ster-Kinekor Cavendish in Cape Town, the event will be live in Johannesburg and streamed to the Cape Town audience.
Seats are limited for this event so book now!
Book here. For enquiries: yvonned@cinemark.co.za
For more info on Cinemark please visit www.cinemark.co.za and follow them on Twitter @Cinemarksk