• Grand Prix went to Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg for Lucozade ads
• Three Gold Lions, two Silver Lions and 10 Bronze Lions were also won by SA agencies

Several Lions went to South Africa in the radio category, what is the secret of success of South African radio creativity?

It started about 10 years ago when the executive creative directors really made an effort to work towards raising the skill level and approach to radio because TV budgets in SA started dwindling. TV used to be a quite important medium for us in terms of creative thinking and production of ideas and first budgets started being slashed as globalisation started taking place and clients started choosing adapting international commercials in South Africa with local voice service to make it acceptable to the local market.

So the door closed for us to quite a large extent in terms of producing our own TV commercials. I think the creativity that used to go into that really started being channelled into radio as an opportunity. And it is now bearing fruit: seven years later it is really bearing fruit. I think it has been a product of a long hard work. Radio is a really important in South Africa.

Everyone has a radio, there are multiple radio stations in South Africa. It is a really important medium because it is cost effective. It is not as expensive as TV, the production expenses are not even near in the TV range. And we have many excellent production facilities in South Africa. So all these things start coming together along with the quality of creatives. We art direct and copywrite work on a radio together because it starts with the thinking and the end goes into the craft and the execution. But it always starts with the team coming up with the idea first. So all these things are in the mix. This year we have had a really good show!

The Grand Prix went to South Africa this year. Why do you think the jury chose this particular work? What made it special?

Hando Sinisalu is a producer of The Best of Global Digital Marketing and reports for Bizcommunity from Cannes.