Belgrade hosts global creativity event - Intercontinental Advertising Cup festival in Serbian capital from April 13 to 17

One of the world's most important advertising festivals - Intercontinental Advertising Cup, will be held in Belgrade for the first time between April 13 and 17, it was announced at a recent conference at Belgrade-based Crowne Plaza Hotel, where this festival was presented by Jure Apih, the founder and general manager of the festival, and Ekrem Dupanovic, the founder of Media Marketing.

- After holding this event in Istanbul for three consecutive years, we have decided to entrust Serbia with the organization of the 7th Intercontinental Advertising Cup and, thus, draw the attention of the international creative public to the Serbian capital during that period. This will greatly contribute to the promotion of the Balkans' creativity globally - said Apih.

- Intercontinental Advertising Cup is an advertising festival that will bring a selection of best entries from five continents to Belgrade. An international jury made up of the members of the juries from regional festivals, which previously shortlisted the best entries in their respective regions, will evaluate only the best of the best of the world's creative production in 2013 - said Apih. He explained that the festival had been established in 2007 by the organizers of the world's top three regional advertising festivals: Asia Pacific's Adfest, Ibero-American FIAP, and New European Golden Drum. Among the organizers is also the Art Director’s Club of Europe.

Apih explained that the specificity of The Cup lay in it not being open to all, but only to the best entries from aforementioned four large regional festivals.

(Jure Apih)

The jury is chaired by Michael Conrad, the former creative director of the Leo Burnett Worldwide agency and the founder and president of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

Other members of the jury are as follows: Santosh Padhi, the executive creative director and co-founder of Taproot India, Sophie Schoenburg, a copywriter at AlmapBBDO from Brazil, Martin Spillmann, the executive creative director of Leo Burnett Western Europe, Adrian Botan, the vice president for creative determination at McCann Erickson CEE, Naoki Ito, the creative director and founder of Party Tokyo, Juan Sanchez, the executive creative director of TBWA/Spain, and Dusan Drakalski, the regional creative director at New Moment New Ideas Company.

Genius loci

The general motto of this festival is "genius loci" (spirit of the place).

- Unlike all other global evaluations and contests, The Cup promotes, in a unique way, a specific and original creativity that confronts global and unified communications – Ekrem Dupanovic pointed out.

In the afternoon program, creative directors from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia will present the creative spirit of the Balkans. There will also be the seventh intercontinental creative summit, a whole-day conference that will see jury members and special guests/lecturers addressing the participants.

Presentation of awarded entries on April 17

Entries from all five continents will be evaluated by the jury in Belgrade between April 13 and 16.

All entries are classified into 18 categories of products and services.

There are five nominations in each of the 38 categories. In the end, the jury will announce 38 Cup winners and only one Grand Cup winner.

The world presentation of all awarded entries will take place April 17.

The organizers added that they expected about 300 visitors, expressing their hope that this world festival would be held in the Serbian capital the next year too.

I.M.