X3M Ideas Emerges ‘Agency of the Year’ at 2023 LAIF Award

Raheem Akingbolu

Leading creative agency, X3M Ideas, has emerged overall winner at the 2023 Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) Awards with 276 points ahead of its closest agency, Noah’s Ark which scored 255 points. Insight Publicis Limited garnered 234 points to take the 3rd position in the highly competitive awards ceremony.

In the breakdown of the award, X3M Ideas clinched 15 Gold, 20 Silver and 7 Bronze while Noah’s Ark won 12 Gold, 16 Silver and 17 Bronze. Insight went home with 9 Gold, 16 Silver and 15 Bronze. 19 other creative agencies participated in the competition, including Leo Burnet Limited, which took the 4th position with 9 Gold, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze which gave the agency a total of 117 points.

In the final analysis, X3M Ideas’ Glo “School teacher” got a silver, Showmax “No one tells a story like we do” got 4 silvers and a gold. The agency creative work for Nirvana’s “Lyrics of innocence” – got a Gold, a silver and a Bronze while FNM’s ” My Kitchen” got a silver, Migo got a gold and a Bronze.

Others X3M Ideas work that gave it the victory are. Jameson in Design for its Independence Day pack, which got two silvers. LPM’s “Voices in my air” got a gold and two silvers in radio and New media. Then the rest of the Golds 11, silvers 9, and Bronze 5 were shared between The Extra Step Initiative’s “Soot Life Expectancy”, Loritem’s “Wasteful Culture” and Newsrooms vote to predict.

The 2023 LAIF Awards, which is the 18th edition, attracted important personalities, including captains of industries and top business executives and the crème de la crème of the advertising industry.

According to the Chairman of the LAIF Management Board, Mr. Jay Chukwuemeka, this year’s awards presented a major opportunity to celebrate outstanding creative works that stood out in the last twelve months and also drive inclusion as seen in the volume of entries that have come in this season.

Chukwuemeka noted that this year’s award celebration was quite symbolic considering the fact that it coincided with the golden celebration of AAAN as a body.

With the theme ‘A New LAIF’, the 2023 LAIF Awards featured a total of 6 major categories and also featured the inclusion of new categories with over 550 entries received from 19 creative agencies that are located across Nigeria and registered under AAAN.

“This year’s award certainly gave every participant the opportunity to celebrate distinctive works from advertising agencies in Nigeria for the period under review. It was an exciting thing to celebrate the great ideas from our creative eggheads,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the agency, Mr. Steve Babaeko has reacted to the victory and described it as another wake-up call to his team to continue giving their best to any brief that comes before them.

“Creative industry is a living discipline that requires total commitment. At X3M Ideas, we approach every brief like the only brief with all it requires to make it impact the bottom line of our client’s business as well as position us as the best. The LAIF award’s victory and others before it, both locally and at the global stage are testimonials for our resilience and dedication. While thanking God for the victory, I dedicate the award to our clients and members of my team who, day in, day out, think of the best way to approach a brief. Succinctly speaking, this is humbling, to say the least” Babaeko said.

The X3M Ideas boss congratulated members of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), especially the LAIF Management Board, for raising the bar this year. He also congratulated other participating agencies for their creative ingenuity, adding that the annual event has continued to position Nigeria’s creative industry as one of the best in the African continent.