About the role of advertising festivals for communication industry and agencies working in it we asked Evgeniya Lysenko, Business Development Director at OMD Media Direction, Russia, White Square 2019 Media Jury member: “Competition is the main engine of our industry and market. And festivals are one of the ways for agencies to compete. They encourage teams to work more efficiently, create new ideas, invent new approaches and solutions. Festivals, and particularly public presentation of the best works of agencies from different countries, help us to broaden our outlook and set up a high bar – they lead to a better understanding of our current level of expertise and directions to go. It’s interesting that success of the agency at the festivals has a wide resonance in different spheres – it is the strengthening of relations with current clients; chance for potential customers to learn about the agency and its capabilities; thanks to the wins at the festivals agencies are rising in local and international ratings (RECMA, ACAR, etc.), the loyalty of current agency employees and interest from the future ones is growing. This is especially important for the younger generation – proactive, energetic people, for whom fame and recognition are no less important than material rewards. I would like to mention also that over the past few years international festivals have created special nominations such as Positive change (Effie), Social ad (White Square), Good Track (Cannes Lions), which stimulate all market participants to create projects and communications that make the world better”.