For those in touch with the Creative Glitz here in Dubai, Tonic’s win of the Creative Lion is old news.. but thought i should still put it up here, because Raffray makes some super-duper excellent points. Personally, i find the creative on this ad to be quite ho-hum by international standards ( sorry Vince :P ), but i credit Raffray and his team immensely for being able to jump ‘client service’ and ‘client’ hurdles to get this piece out there. All the hoo-haa may seem quite unecessary to many … but i assure you winning a never ending battle with client service and clients deserves this and much more.

Tonic Communications has won the Golden Lion for the it’s advertisement for Sony Middle East called ‘Paperclip’. It is the first time in the 52-year history of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival that a Gold Lion is awarded to a Middle East Agency. Tonic Communications won Gold in the Press category.
Click to read what CD Vincent Raffray has to say about his Creative Lion win (impt bits highlighted)

The natural inclination of humans is to go with the group…. but us creatives are born with the need to abandon reason and approval and make sure that every ‘creature of habit’ out there keeps twitching for the rest of their natural existance ;P

Raymond Loewy had coined term MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable Solution) and said that creative professionals are experts at MAYA. UAE so far has been operating on what i call MASA (Most Advanced Yet Standard Solution) … so cheeers for Vincent for being radical but more so for getting accepted :) Hoorah !