Creatives' party lite on imagination

SOMEHOW I'd expected the Ad of the Year party thrown by the advertising industry's Creative Circle to be more ... well, creative.

SOMEHOW I'd expected the Ad of the Year party thrown by the advertising industry's Creative Circle to be more ... well, creative.

Fine, the venue - the new Fashion TV Café at the flash, but deserted Michelangelo Towers Mall - was hip and happening, especially if you like places where the noise is at mega-decibel level and flashing TV screens show images (of fashion, naturally) perpetually. And you don't mind smoke up your nose.

The food, catered by the café's own chef, was great (loved the little spoons of Chinese noodles). Not to mention a bar that served whatever-you-fancy for hours on end.

But the big moment when the winners were announced could learn a lot from a nursery school's prize-giving day.

Although some successful print and billboard ads were on display, you'd think that the 15th annual ceremony giving prizes for radio and TV ads would, by now, have dreamed up some way of playing the winners to the gathered audience - after all, there were all those television screens and a sound system de luxe.

But we just had to take the word of new Creative Circle chairman Alastair King, of the KingJames agency, that an SABC "Education Maths" campaign by TBWA Hunt Lascaris had won the TV prize, and the Coke Twist series (from Lobedu Leo Burnett) was tops on radio.

Other winners were (for magazine advertising) Lobedu, again, for their ads for the Pendoring (Afrikaans) Advertising Awards, TBWA Hunt Lascaris for a print ad for World Press Freedom Day and Net#Work BBDO for a Simba/Ghost Pops billboard.

We were not in Schlebville, but the copy-writing sisterhood provided a couple of attractive guests.

At first I thought that stylish Thato Sekakatlela and Lerato Molele were models. Perish the patronising thought. Both with Ogilvy, they are, respectively, a copywriter and an account manager.

Enjoyed chatting to Joburg newcomer (and part-time stand-up comic) Khaya Dlanga, who has moved up from Cape Town to join The Jupiter Drawing Room's Gauteng arm, Black River Football Club (and that's an ad agency, would you believe?).

It was good to renew acquaintance with Wingwing Mdlulwa, who once had an agency called Twist and now has another called Twist Again. Chubby Checker would platz!

The Ink's Andy Cuthbertson tells me his company has just become the South African representative of the Cannes Ad Festival and plans to make that a big local celebration again (remember how years ago we used to flock to the cinema to see the world's best ads?)

Loved former Yfm executive Kim Thipe's yellow sequinned satin frock and blue takkies, but for a dress code that said "creative", freebie T-shirts with logos seemed to be the wardrobe of choice for most of the male guests.

.I spurned the lavish and crowded Tsotsi Oscar-winning parties this week for a quiet family celebration with my brilliant daughter, Megan (who edited this wonderful movie) and her close friends.

Want to read more about the Gill low jinks? Go to sundaytimes.co.za/gwen