Today with the question about the role of advertising festivals for our industry we turned to Creative Director of AIDA Pioneer, for 4 years in a row leader of Creativity ranking of Association of communications and marketing agencies of Belarus, Dmitry Apolenis. Glad to share his point of view.  

“We participate at ad festivals, and White Square in particular, for several reasons.   

First of all, it’s drive – nothing encourages and inspires more! Festivals are a charge of energy, which maintains the interest to profession and pushes forward. Everyone in our agency dreams of Cannes Lion and knows that this dream is absolutely real to come true as we have everything for this: the best team of like-minded people, common goals and, of course, the trust of our clients.

Secondly, it’s an incentive to be better – to create European level projects, to develop ourselves and our clients. The fact is that at such serious festivals as, for example, White Square, to win means to be recognized by professionals from all over the world, and it’s possible only for projects with a really high level of quality. Unfortunately, not many Belarusian projects succeed. We have set this bar for ourselves long ago and try to keep to it daily. We have rules in accordance with which we work on each project, effectively solving the problem, surprising by the solution, implementing the idea perfectly. Of course, not all the works become festival winners, but striving for this goal moves us forward and improves quality and stability.

The third reason is education and connections. Where else you can listen to lectures and chat with so many professionals in such a short period of time! I especially appreciate the experience that I get while working in the jury.

And, finally, the fourth reason is business. Festival awards helped our agency to stay #1 in Belarusian creativity rankings for 4 years in a row. It’s not a secret that this opens new opportunities”.