LIA’s Creative Conversations young creative program in Vegas expands to five days: Speakers include Mark Tutssel, Tony Granger, Tham Khai Meng, Amir Kassaei, Nick Law + Daymond John

Last year at the London International Awards judging, held in Las Vegas, the 28 year old international awards show introduced an amazing initiative designed to give back to the industry that has supported it. When the Creative Conversations program was introduced in 2012 no one knew quite what to expect. It was a three day program of speeches and conversations conducted by some of the biggest names in our industry with 63 juniors from around the world.

2012 ‘Creative Conversations’ speakers included: Ted Royer, Susan Credle, Israel Diaz, Sonal Dabral, Tony Calcao, Jeremy Craigen, Faris Yakob, Neil French, Doerte Spengler-Ahrens, Bob Garfield, Jonathon Ker, Ralph van Dijk, Scott Elias and Phil Growick.

This year’s speakers is headlined by Daymond John, founder & CEO of FUBU, Star of ABC’s Shark Tank, & CEO of Shark Branding, marketing consulting agency. Other speakers include Tony Granger, Global Chief Creative Officer of Young & Rubicam, Amir Kassaei, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of DDB Worldwide, Nick Law, Global Chief Creative Officer of R/GA, Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather, Mark Tutssel, Global Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide and many others.

Uniquely, Creative Conversations is fully funded by LIA – airfares, hotels and lunches each day. This year, sixty-five hand-picked young creatives will attend this invitation-only event which has been extended by two days to allow them to sit in on the statue discussions with the full LIA juries.

Barbara Levy (pictured), Founder and President of LIA explains the reasoning behind establishing the Creative Conversations program: “LIA has always quietly given back to the Industry, whether it be sending complimentary Winners & Finalists annuals to the colleges and schools or sponsoring the various Art Directors Clubs competitions around the world, including the YDA during Cannes Lions,” said Levy. “We realized that there are plenty of Young Creative Initiatives out there and really wanted to do something different, but were never quite set on what that something different should be.”

“For 26 years, LIA held an Award Ceremony in London. In recent years, many of our winners have expressed that to send a winning team or company representative to London for a one-night event was not cost-effective. So we decided that the money that we spent on a one-night Awards Ceremony could be better spent giving something valuable back to the industry.”

Levy said the feedback that LIA received from the attendees of the inaugural ‘Creative Conversations’ was outstanding. The speakers and press that attended also concurred that the event was a unique and worthwhile experience.

“To be able to sit at a round-table discussion with Neil French; dine with Amir Kassaei and Mark Tutssel; listen to Sonal Dabral speak on his career; was an experience that the attendees, at that point in their career, could only dream about,” said Levy.

In order to push the envelope for ‘Creative Conversations’ further LIA looked at last year’s program and decided it would be a unique and valuable experience for thes young creatives to experience the awards judging themselves. 

“We thought about what was relevant and concluded that the reason that we were there to begin with was to judge creativity from all over the world,” said Levy.

“LIA, along with the agreement of all the Jury Presidents, decided that in 2013 we would invite the ‘Creative Conversations’ attendees to sit in on the judging statue discussions. This, as far as we know, is an unprecedented move. What could serve a young creative better than having an understanding of what separates good creative ideas from award winning creative ideas. In order to achieve this the programme would need to be extended to 5 days so that the attendees would have the opportunity to sit in on two different jury statue discussions.”

This is the 5th year LIA has judged at the Wynn/Encore in Las Vegas and it is widely regarded by the ECDs that attend the judging to be a “must do” event.

Over the years LIA traditionally brought the judging to the juries. They hosted sessions all around the world, but whilst that was probably the most convenient solution for the juries in terms of location, it did mean that each of the media were being judged regionally, and that one jury did not get to see all entries within a respective medium. 

So in 2008 they adopted a system where the jury panels come together in one place to peruse all entries and then to have fruitful discussions in order to choose the metal winners.

“Coincidentally in 2008, I asked Jeremy Craigen (left) to judge for LIA,” said Levy. “His response, ‘I judge so many shows. If you were to judge in Vegas I will agree’.” So on a dare I made a trip to Vegas and went up and down the Strip looking over hotels and their facilities for judging. When I got to the Wynn I realized that it was the perfect place for judging. It was the only hotel on the Strip that the conference rooms were on ground level with plenty of natural light. The Wynn was our personal preference, as it provided not just the most superior of conference facilities, but also some of the best restaurants and entertainment in Las Vegas. So I phoned Jeremy, gave him the dates and told him he would be flying to Vegas to chair our Print, Poster, Billboard and Non-Traditional Jury. It took him a minute to realize I was serious, but of course, he agreed. As they say, the rest is history.”

Three lucky young creatives from Australia have been chosen to attend.