AWARD launches This Way Up: Australia’s Advertising Festival of Creativity ~ to be held at the Ovolo Hotel in Sydney from August 10 – 17
One of the most eagerly-awaited announcements in the creative community has been revealed today with AWARD’s official launch of This Way Up: Australia’s Advertising Festival of Creativity, to be held at The Ovolo Hotel in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo from 10 to 17 August 2021.
This Way Up will deliver a feast of events that will challenge and excite delegates by pushing creative boundaries and celebrating the very best creative thinking in Australia and around the world.
Says Cam Blackley, AWARD chair: “Hot on the heels of the AWARD Awards virtual show, it’s fantastic to announce This Way Up, AWARD’s new, signature creative festival where our community will finally be able to come together in person for a week of immersion in the power of creativity.”
Commenting on the festival theme, Blackley says: “It has been in the pipeline for a few years and we’re really pleased to be able to finally get our creative festival off the ground. It made sense to find a focal point for all of the programs AWARD runs, taking the opportunity to further connect us all through creativity.
“This Way Up will also push the mantra that creativity is everyone’s business, that great creative thinking can solve just about any business challenge. It’s the perfect opportunity to take creativity beyond an agency’s creative department and demonstrate to all marketers that in a topsy-turvy world, creative thinking is the only advantage.”
With the full This Way Up program to be announced soon, confirmed highlights of the festival include:
Speaker events
An outstanding line-up of speakers from home and abroad will feature in a range of keynote presentations including AWARD Work Behind The Work, and interactive panel discussions on Wednesday and Thursday, 11 and 12 August. Stand by for the announcement of speakers and events (which will also be live-streamed for audiences beyond Sydney).
Grand and Special AWARD Awards
Following the announcement of the 42nd AWARD Awards winners on 21 May via the hugely popular virtual show, This Way Up will feature judging of the Grand and Special Awards followed by the winners’ announcement on Thursday evening 12 August in the specially-created Pencil Bar at The Ovolo Hotel. Awards to be presented include The Grand Award, The APG Grand Award, Individual Agency of the Year, Individual Creative or Team of the Year, Individual Director of the Year, Emerging Creative or Team of the Year, Emerging Director of the Year, and Emerging Indigenous Creative Talent.
AWARD 40th: Hall of Fame inductions
Celebrate four decades of AWARD creative genius and be inspired as some of our industry’s true legends are inducted into the AWARD Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening 11 August.
AWARD School winners
After 12 of possibly the most challenging weeks of their life, it is time for the AWARD School Class of 2021 to graduate. On Tuesday evening 10 August, we will announce the AWARD School 2021 NSW winners, with the winning students from other states flown to Sydney for the National AWARD School winner announcement on Thursday evening 12 August at the Pencil Bar.
Educational events
AWARD Craft, AWARD Creative Leadership, and Commercial Producers Council Agency Producer Mentoring courses will all be held during the festival week with full details to be announced soon.
Nightly networking functions
From AWARD School graduations to Hall of Fame inductions and Grand and Special Awards winner presentations, every night of the festival will provide the perfect chance to network with marketing gurus, creative luminaries, and rising stars.
The program for This Way Up: Australia’s Advertising Festival of Creativity will be announced soon, including the full schedule of events, ticket prices and packages.
In the meantime, to register your interest and to ensure you are the first to receive all the details of the festival as they are announced, click here: https://bit.ly/3pJ8YDl
The brand identity for This Way Up was designed by M35. https://thiswayup.com.au/
15 Comments
‘If creativity is everyone’s business’ as Cam so rightly states – when are advertising agencies going to stop calling the Creative Department the Creative Department?
When we change the way we are remunerated in favour of the value of ideas not time.
Dear Cam says,
What does – ‘When we change the way we are remunerated in favour of the value of ideas not time’. – have to do with why only writers and art directors get to say they work in the Creative Department?
@Did I miss soemthing?
The moment you have something valuable to offer. Something more than talk.
I don’t think my question is unreasonable.
Surely, an Adam, like Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier, would claim what he contributes to Thinkerbell’s output is every bit as creative as that produced by the agency’s writers and art directors.
So, my question remains; in this digital age, where we laud the creative genius of people like the Atlassian founders, why do only writers and art directors get to claim they work in the Creative Department?
Sheeeesh. Classic frustrated suit language right there.
Yup
Go to Award School.
Do well amongst 100 competitors.
Claw your way up in agencies.
Come up with unexpected ideas on impossible briefs.
Like we had to.
Then you can be a creative too.
Dear Prove it,
Get given an impossible brief.
Try and find an insight that gives the ‘creative department’ some way of responding.
Present work to client (even when you know it’s the sort of work the client invariably complains about) and get it sold.
(Cop a blast from the client for the work being late, or make-up a bullshit excuse to protect the ‘creative department’)
Then find ways to get a production budget approved that’s…well, way over the budget the client has approved.
Then, after the client has told you of the edit changes they demand – get told by the ‘creative department’ the client doesn’t know what they’re talking about – and go back and try and find a way to sell the edit.
Then when the client approved the edit watch the ‘creative department’ claim credit for an ad (they might’ve written) but never would’ve happened without the ‘suits’ finding the insight, selling the idea. Getting extra budget approved and selling the edit the client didn’t like; not to mention explaining to the client why there’s a 60 sec edit they never knew about or paid for ran once in regional TV and is being entered in Cannes.
This is Cam’s point about ‘everyone’s creative ‘
Although ‘creative departments’ generally only have to come up with ‘one idea’ to sell their clients products. Whereas the suits/planners and finance people have to come up with untold creative ways to get the ad sold and made for the ‘creative department’.
So. if advertising is a creative business, and ‘creative Ituq is everyone’s responsibility’, why do only copywriters and art director get to say they work in the ‘Creative Department’?
And if you think I’m wrong, try working in account service for a week and tell me what you think after that.
You know what? I hear you, champion. I’d go slightly further too… and say a good suit and a good creative are often a better team than a good writer and an art director.
Damn you guys are cruel.
“side note”: Well done to AWARD and Cam for what looks like a kick ass event
Take a chill pill, fam. Sounds like you need to leave your current job and make a date with a recruiter!
This is how your comments make you look: https://media.giphy.com/media/a7ZvDb2NfbQvS/giphy.gif
If your getting this upset (and you are, your language, sentence structure, commitment to long rants is a tell) about not being called a ‘creative’ when you believe you have creative approaches to the way you work, then you need to find a new job. Probably a new industry. Your own anger and frustration is more damaging to you than to any change you think you’re going to implement. Go in peace, mate.
I think the best way for me to respond is to simply say ‘You’re right. Don’t listen to me. Listen to one of the great champions of creativity, Rory Sutherland instead’. ‘Campaign UK”s article ‘Has adland painted itself into a corner with its framing of creativity?’ is a good place to start.