BMF Australia’s Warren Brown picked to lead Promo & Activation jury at Cannes Lions 2011

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Warren Brown.jpgBMF Australia creative founder Warren Brown has been selected as the Promo & Activation jury president at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Multi-award winner Brown’s jury will be tasked to award the freshest creative ideas that immediately engage consumers to products and brands achieving measurable results.

The selection of Brown to head the Promo & Activation Lions comes after two consecutive years of Australian success in the category at Cannes: in 2010 and in 2009.

Brown’s awards include 19 Cannes Lions and seven D&AD Yellow Pencils spread across many categories and media channels. In 2009 BMF was awarded B&T Australian Agency of the Decade. Warren has appeared in the D&AD Art Direction Book and D&AD’s Best of 40 Years, 100 Best Posters of the Century and Cutting Edge Advertising. In the 2008 Won Report, Brown was ranked number three ECD in the world for direct marketing.

At Cannes Lions he’s been a juror for Titanium and Film, sat on several juries for D&AD and the Clio Awards and chaired every Australian award show.

“The world of Promo and Activations is delivering breakthrough ideas that demand our attention. The creativity that is flourishing in this area is not only exciting and engaging but empowering on many levels. I can’t wait to see what this dynamic category will do to challenge and delight us in Cannes 2011,” says Brown.

“Promo & Activation Lions saw the highest increase percentage of all the categories last year at Cannes Lions, and since its inception in 2002, winning a Direct Lion has now become the most worthy global award in this category. We are extremely pleased to have such high calibre professionals as Alex and Warren to head the respective juries of these two categories to establish the best work out there that sets the benchmark for the future,” says Philip Thomas, CEO of the Festival.

Alexander Schill.jpgAlso announced today, Alexander Schill (left), global chief creative officer and partner of Serviceplan Group in Germany will chair the Direct Lions jury.

After leading the German agency Springer & Jacoby to its most successful year in 2005 winning seven Cannes Lions in six different categories, Alex left in 2006 to become Chief Creative Officer, Member of the Board and Associate Partner at the Serviceplan Group (Serviceplan, Mediaplus, Plan.Net) one of the largest independent agencies in Europe with around 1,000 employees in five countries and clients like BMW, Lufthansa, O2 and Sony Ericsson.

Within four years Alex managed to push Serviceplan to number two in the German Creative Ranking (Manager Magazine 2010), number three in the Interactive Ranking (W&V 2009), number eight in the Cannes Lions Ranking of Direct Agencies (Cannes Report) and number fourteen overall ranking of agencies worldwide (Big Won 2008). Alex is listed number twelve Executive Creative Director worldwide (Big Won 2009).

Says Schill: “It’s a shame that some people still think a TVC is the supreme discipline. The truth is that the most fascinating work appears in categories like Direct and Promotion – because Direct and Promotion are the only categories that are not judged by their channel but are judged for their basic idea. I very much look forward to chairing an important category like Direct and work with the best creatives from all over the world in one jury.”