In marketing and advertising, everybody’s got an ego. The only question is how big it is.

This was the starting point for the campaign for this year’s Loerie Awards, devised by the creative team at MetropolitanRepublic. While last year’s campaign was a nostalgic appeal to ‘Make Your Mom Proud’, the 31st Annual Loerie Awards is all about you, your ego, and what fuels it. “The communications industry is one of the hardest markets to crack,” notes Peter Khoury, Metropolitan’s Executive Creative Director. “Getting us to overcome our ‘too-cool-for-school’ attitude to is about as difficult as getting a donkey to play the banjo. But that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with the campaign for this year’s Loeries – feedyourego.co.za. We had to dig deep into the industry psyche to find out not just what we think about The Loerie Awards, but how we all feel about it. And it boiled down to a simple truth: ego.”

In an industry where hundreds of talented creatives compete for superiority daily, ego is an essential survival tool. However, your ego can all too easily get bruised, battered, and bullied if you don’t nourish it. Luckily, there are many things your ego can feed on: a sports car, a toy boy or girl, a penthouse and of course, a nutritious Loerie Award.

This concept of feeding the industry’s ego will be carried through each element of this year’s Loeries campaign – from the much-anticipated call to entries direct mailer in the form of a balloon encouraging entrants to “inflate their ego’s”, to the glittering awards ceremony to the coveted Loeries Annual. There is even a specially designed microsite, www.feedyourego.co.za, where creatives can compete online to see who has the biggest ego as well as create their own ego avatar. The owner of the best avatar will receive an all expenses paid Rock Star pass to The Loerie Awards Festival Weekend in September.

Feedyourego.co.za is where the campaign begins, but definitely not where it ends – every facet of The Loerie Awards, from entries to the event and beyond, is your ego’s personal fiefdom. It’s a world where you are the one and only, there’s nobody you’d rather be, and you think it’s about time you got some recognition. So enter your best work into The Loerie Awards this year and get ready to fuel that ego!

For full entry criteria, eligibility and any additional information on The Loerie Awards, please visit the official Loeries website www.theloerieawards.co.za. Entries opened on 16 March and close on 15 May.

Major Sponsors

The major sponsors for the 2009 Loerie Awards are the SABC; Ads24; Cape Town Tourism; The City of Cape Town; and Gearhouse South Africa.

Additional Sponsors and Partners

Brandhouse; Lithotech; Lightworks; Sappi; Aon South Africa; Hetzner; Tempest Car Hire; MetropolitanRepublic; Hello Computer; Zero One One; Wicked Pixels; DJ Badly; Media Host; Orchestra Blue; Sonovision Studios; Gallo Images; Paygate; Ornico Group; Rocketseed; Newsclip; Lifesense Financial Services; Egg Films; The Rosebank; and Grand Daddy Hotel.

Travelling Exhibition Venues and dates to remember:

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, PE - 7 to 14 March

DV8, Windhoek, Namibia - 4 to13 April

Vega, Johannesburg - 2 to 9 May

Durban Natal Museum - 16 to 28 May

Bloemfontein Museum - 10 to 27 June

Vega, Durban - 13 to 18 July

Vega, Cape Town - 25 July to 1 August

City Varsity, Johannesburg - 9 to 15 August

Tshwane University of Technology - 22 to 29 August

North West University, Potchefstroom - 24 September to 4 October

Stellenbosch Academy - 10 to 22 October

One Club, New York - End November

All dates are subject to change

Important Loerie dates to diarise:

Entries Open: 16 March.
Entry Deadline: 15 May.
Eligibility Period: 1 June 2008 to 31 May 2009.
Migrate Magazine 2009
Judging: 13 to 17 July.
Judges Seminar: 13 July.
Loerie Awards Festival Weekend Cape Town: 24 to 27 September.
Awards ceremonies: Friday 25 September and Saturday 26 September.
Migrate Magazine October/November 2009.

For more information, visit www.theloerieawards.co.za.