The Nation Newspaper

Tag: win big

  • DDB Lagos, Insight Publicis win big at advertising awards

    DDB Lagos emerged the biggest winner at the 2018 Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) awards which held on Sunday at the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos.

    The event, themed: “Future Forward”, is organised annually by the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) as a platform to recognise creativity and innovation in the industry.

    Of the eight categories – Outdoor/Poster, Press, Digital and Mobile, Radio, Television, LAIF Campaign, Special Category and LAIF Grand Prix – DDB won six gold, four silver and nine bronze medals. The agency was also awarded the Grand Prix award for winning the highest number of gold medals.

    Insight Publicis won the highest number of medals (24) – five gold, 10 silver and nine bronze. Other big winners included X3M Ideas (five gold, seven silver and eight bronze medals) SO&U (four gold, 11 silver and eight bronze medals); Culture (three gold and two bronze medals); Noah’s Ark (one gold, eight silver and 11 bronze medals); Up In The Sky (one gold, five silver and four bronze medals); Etu Odi (one gold, two silver and two bronze medals) and BBDO (one gold, one silver and three bronze medals).

    AAAN President Ikechi Odigb described the LAIF awards as an important event in the advertising industry because it promotes professionalism. “LAIF is committed to promoting professionalism and creative excellence within the brand industry. It reflects one of the ways we reward the great work we do all through the year. LAIF gives us an opportunity to give ourselves a pat on the back.”

    The chief juror, Michael Zylstra, said some of the works assessed were of topmost quality and reflected the Nigerian environment.

    “If I have to explain, the works that caught our attention and would be awarded tonight resonated from a Nigerian perspective and had local insight. It was executed in a way that couldn’t be done in any other country,” he said.

  • Make Payments on UBA PoS and Win Big

    In a bid to further encourage payments on its Point of Sale Terminal (PoS) terminals , Pan African Financial services group, United Bank for Africa(UBA)  has announced that it will be rewarding 25 lucky customers with N100,000 each, when they make payments with their UBA cards on UBA POS terminals at any merchant location.

    The promo which is scheduled to run till December 31, 2018, will see a total of 25 people become N100,000 richer, just by paying on UBA POS terminals at any merchant location across Nigeria.  After repeated use, the customers will be automatically enlisted for the draw when the total sum of payments they have made on UBA POS terminals exceeds N50,000. A total of N2.5 million is  up for grabs.

    Speaking during the launch of the promo, Group Head, Cards, Dr Yinka Adedeji, explained that the Promo is in line with the bank’s initiatives of  rewarding customers, loyal to the bank. “We believe it is time we rewarded our customers who have been very loyal over the years. Without them, we probably would not have made the giant strides attained all over the years and in recent times’.

    According to him, “Because customers are at the heart of what we do, we remain committed to consistently improving customer service and delighting our loyal customers as we help them grow.”

    UBA is one of Africa’s leading banks with operations in 20 African countries and in London and New York, with presence in Paris.

    Adjudged to be at the forefront of innovation and convenient banking, UBA is one of the first financial services institutions on the continent to deploy Finacle 10x, a new information technology platform that boosts its services and electronic banking channels.

    Today, UBA provides banking services to more than 15 million customers globally, through diverse channels and over a thousand touch points.

     

     

  • 60th Grammys: Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar win big; Jay-Z shut out

    60th Grammys: Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar win big; Jay-Z shut out

    Bruno Mars pulled off a clean sweep of album, record and song of the year categories at the 2018 Grammy awards on Sunday night, upsetting odds-favourites Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z to take home the evening’s three most prestigious awards.

    The 24K Magic singer won all six awards he was nominated for, while Lamar went home with five and Jay-Z, who had the most nominations of any performer with eight, was left empty-handed.

    The night reached a towering emotional summit when Kesha, joined by Cyndi Lauper, Camila Cabello, Andra Day, Julia Michaels and members of the Resistance Revival Chorus, performed her ballad ‘Praying.’

    The performance was the culmination of a years-long comeback for the singer, who accused the producer Dr Luke of sustained emotional abuse and rape and was involved in a protracted defamation suit with him. Kesha was introduced to the stage by Janelle Monáe, who gave a rousing call for the music industry to do its part in ending sexual abuse: “Just as we have the power to shape culture, we also have the power to undue the culture that does not do us well.”

    Lamar, the second most nominated artist of the night, kicked off the ceremony with a medley of songs from his album ‘Damn’. Lamar, who has nabbed a nomination in at least one category for six consecutive Grammys, was joined by Dave Chappelle and Bono, who features on Lamar’s song ‘XXX.’

    “The only thing more frightening than watching a black man be honest in America is being an honest black man in America,” said Chappelle, who returned to present Lamar with the award for best rap album, in a preamble to the rapper’s performance.

    The ceremony was not without its gimmicks, too, most notably a recorded segment that featured the host James Corden auditioning various celebrities to narrate the audio version of Michael Wolff’s bombshell book ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.’ John Legend, DJ Khaled, Cardi B and Cher all made cameos, but none were more surprising than that of Hillary Clinton, who read a line from the bestselling exposé aloud, much to the chagrin of the UN ambassador, Nikki Haley.

    Former presidential candidate and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, read alongside Cardi B, DJ Khaled, Snoop Dogg, Cher and John Legend, all took jabs at President Trump.

    The comedy skit was set around Grammy host James Corden having the stars audition for a role reading the book in order to win next year’s award for Best Spoken Word Album.

    In the pre-taped bit, Clinton’s face was masked at first by the controversial book, but after she lowered it, she was met with a ton of applause.

    For Clinton’s excerpt, she read about Trump’s fast food fetish saying, “He had a longtime fear of being poisoned. One reason why he liked to eat at McDonalds. No one knew he was coming and the food was safely pre-made.”

    Many of those attending walked the red carpet with white roses to honour the victims of sexual abuse, a piggyback off the Time’s Up pin badges celebrities wore to the Golden Globe awards this month. A group called ‘Voices in Entertainment’, led by Meg Harkins of Roc Nation and Karen Rait of Interscope Records, spear headed the initiative.

    “As we are inspired by the #TimesUp campaign, we are encouraging the artists that we work with and our colleagues attending the 60th annual Grammy awards in New York City to wear a white rose to the ceremony,” wrote the women in an email. “We choose the white rose because historically it stands for hope, peace, sympathy and resistance.”

    Bringing to an end an evening sprinkled with moments of protest was a powerful performance by Logic and Alessia Cara, who dedicated their song ‘1-800-273-8255’ to those who had attempted or lost their lives because of suicide.

  • Desmond Elliot, Uche Jombo win big at AFRIFF

    Desmond Elliot, Uche Jombo win big at AFRIFF

    Nollywood actress Uche Jombo and male colleague Desmond Elliot at the weekend in Calabar, Cross River State, added another feather to their caps, as Africa’s Best Actress and Actor respectively. The awards and gala night was the peak of activities marking the third edition of the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), at the popular Tinapa Business and Leisure Resort.

    Jombo won the coveted prize for her role in her film, Lies Men Tell, while Desmond Elliot, for the lead role he played in the same film, directed by Ikechukwu Onyeka and released on DVD few months ago. Both actors received a cash prize of $2000 each from United Bank for Africa, one of the supporters of the festival. Also, The Meeting, co-produced by Rita Dominic and Mildred Okwo won in the Best Nigerian film category, also getting the $2000 UBA prize money.

    The big winners on the night were films from South Africa. The country’s controversial film, Of Good Report, directed by Jamil Qubeka was adjudged Africa’s Best feature film, just as Roberta Durrant also from South Africa won the Best Director as well as Donovan Marsh whose iNumber Number won the Best Screen Play award.

    Every winner went home with $2000, except the winner of the Best Film who received $6000.

    Speaking at the award night, attended by over 500 filmmakers and movie stars across the world, Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State said, hosting the festival in the state was a realization of the vision of his administration for the Nigerian movie industry.

    According to him, “several years ago, we decided as a team of young men to position ourselves and our economy as a destination for service driven economy, as well as a destination for entertainment where tourists can live in harmony with nature and with our people. Hosting this event in the state culminate in the realisation of that dream for our people and for Nigerians.”

    Some of the biggest names from black Hollywood who graced the weel-long event were Lynn Withfield, who was one of the festival ambassadors, Venessa Williams, Nigeria’s born Hollywood actors, Wale Ojo, Ngoli Okafor and Gbenga Akinnade among others.