Top ten internationally recognized experts from the creative industry are joining 23rd Golden Drum Best Piece Jury President Graham Lang, Chief Creative Officer, Y&R Advertising, South Africa & Africa.
Members of the 23rd Golden Drum Best Piece Jury are: jury president Graham Lang, Chief Creative Officer, Y&R Advertising, South Africa & Africa, Ayşe Aydın, Executive Creative Director, Team Red Istanbul, Turkey, Aljoša Bagola, Executive Creative Director, Pristop, Slovenia, Ferenc Benesch, Executive Creative Director, Geometry Global & Ogilvy & Mather Hungary, Hungary Francesco Bestagno, Creative Director, Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann, Austria, Kirill Blinov, Creative Director, Digital Arts Network Moscow, Russia, Denys Keleberdenko, Creative Director, BBDO Ukraine, Adam Kerj, Chief Creative Officer, McCann WorldGroup Nordics, Sweden, Jari Ullakko, Executive Creative Director, SEK, Helsinki, Finland, Žarko Veljković, Creative Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Belgrade, Serbia, Ricardo Wolff, Creative Director, DDB Berlin, Germany.
Jury president Graham Lang, who will work in company of top professionals from creative industry, says: “A Grand Prix needs to do two things. It needs to make you insanely jealous and it needs to inspire you. And you need to experience these two emotions at exactly the same time when you first see or hear the idea.”
Best Piece Jury President Graham Lang, Chief Creative Officer, Y&R Advertising, South Africa & Africa
Graham started his career in Cape Town, South Africa as an Art Director where he managed to win a host of local and international awards, including one of the country’s first ever Silver Pencils at D&AD. In 2003 he moved to Saatchi & Saatchi London as Creative Director, where he produced award-winning work on local and global campaigns. In 2008 he joined RKCR/Y&R in London as the Global ECD on Land Rover. In October 2011, he returned to South Africa to undertake a regional position as Chief Creative Officer for Y&R SA. His responsibilities were extended to oversee work across the African continent in 2014.
Ayşe Aydın, Executive Creative Director, Team Red Istanbul, Turkey
Ayşe has been working in the advertising industry for 13 years. She worked as a copywriter for DDA, DDB & Co. and Rafineri. Later she became Creative Group Head of Medina Turgul DDB. In February 2014, Ayşe started working as the Team Red Creative Director. In March 2015, she became Y&R/Team Red Executive Creative. In these agencies, Ayşe has worked for brands including Akbank, Hürriyet, Volkswagen, Siemens, SEK, Unilever, Digiturk and Vodafone. Ayşe’s work has been awarded many times by major industry festival like the Mixx Europe Awards, WARC, Effie, One Show, Women to Watch Award, Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, Golden Drum, Eurobest, Epica and Felis.
Aljoša Bagola, Executive Creative Director, Pristop, Slovenia
Aljoša has been devising the biggest marketing communications projects in the region for the last 16 years. He has won numerous awards and honours at local and international advertising festivals (New York Festivals, Epica, Eurobest, Golden Drum) for his work and was declared Slovene Creative Director of the Year multiple times. He is a regular jury member at festivals in Slovenia and abroad. As a young creative, he represented Slovenia at the biggest international advertising festival in Cannes in 2002, competing at Young Lions Competition.
Ferenc Benesch, Executive Creative Director, Geometry Global & Ogilvy & Mather Hungary, Hungary
Ferenc was born in Budapest. He studied design in Hungary, Spain and United Kingdom. During his 20 years in advertising he has worked as a Designer, Art Director and as a Commercial Director with stints at Saatchi & Saatchi and Y&R. He has also worked freelance for many agencies such as Publicis, BBDO, McCann Erickson and Leo Burnett. The winner of multiple local and international awards (including D&AD, New York Festival, Art Directors Club, Golden Drum, EPICA, PIAF), Ferenc currently works as Executive Creative Director at Geometry Global and Ogilvy & Mather Hungary.
Francesco Bestagno, Creative Director, Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann, Austria
Francesco graduated in 1987 from the Art School St. Ulrich in South Tyrol as one of the first alumni of Prof. Walter Lürzer’s “School for Applied Art Vienna“. He began his career at Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann as a Graphic Designer, later becoming Art Director and Head of Digital Media. Currently he is their Creative Director and serves as member of the company management. Bestagno is one of the most awarded Creative Directors in Austria. His work throughout the past 25 years has been awarded many times over by major industry festivals like Cannes, Clio, Cresta, Golden Drum, Mobius, New York Festivals, London International Advertising Awards, Creative Club Austria, Epica, Eurobest, Columbus, Montreux, AFSP, John Caple Award and ADC Europe.
Kirill Blinov, Creative Director, Digital Arts Network Moscow, Russia
Kirill works in digital advertising since 2009. For a few years he worked as a Copywriter at one of the leading digital-agencies in Russia (Red Keds and Wunderman). In February 2012 Kirill found digital agency Brandy Digital, where he was a Creative Director. In October 2013 Brandy Digital joined TBWA, and Kirill has become Digital Creative Director of TBWA\Moscow. In February 2014 he launched Digital Arts Network Moscow, as part of TBWA\Group Moscow. His projects for Adidas won Golden Cristal Awards, Effie Russia Awards 2014, Effie Russia Awards 2015. He is an expert in trigger based communication, creative technologies and social business.
Denys Keleberdenko, Creative Director, BBDO Ukraine
Denys started on his career path as a copywriter for Ogilvy & Mather in 2006. Then, he continued to enrich his experience at McCann, and later as Creative Director of small local digital agency with big global clients. Denys has 10 years of experience working in traditional and digital agencies in Ukraine. He worked with local and global brands in both the European and overseas markets such as Visa, Pepsi, Snickers, Ballantine’s, Martini, Stella Artois, Bud and Staropramen. When somebody says that creative ones go right, while effective ones go to the left, he becomes confused, not quite sure which way to go because his creative ideas combine both of those qualities. Awards prove that. He has been awarded many times by major industry festivals like Epica, Golden Hammer, Golden Drum, the Effie Awards, and Red Apple.
Adam Kerj, Chief Creative Officer, McCann WorldGroup Nordics, Sweden
Adam is the newly appointed Chief Creative Officer of McCann Sweden & Nordics with more than 25 years of experience partnering with world-class brands. Throughout his creative career he has garnered more than 100 international industry awards including 11 Cannes Lions (Cyber Grand Prix), Golds in Effies, Gold, Silver & Bronze in One Show, Webby Awards, etc. 2014 Adam joined JWT NY as their CCO working with Macys, J&J, Rolex, Puma, JP Morgan. Prior to JWT NY Adam worked at 360i in New York. Before moving to the US he was Executive Creative Director, Founding Partner of Saatchi & Saatchi Sweden. It was named Agency of the Year twice and one of the most awarded agency in the Saatchi European network leading integrated work across the Nordic region for P&G, Toyota and Swedbank. Prior to launching Saatchi & Saatchi Adam was Executive Creative Director, Founding Partner of TBWA Sweden. He honed his craft at Leo Burnett in Chicago and Copenhagen where he was appointed the networks youngest Executive Creative Director and partner at the age of 27.
Jari Ullakko, Executive Creative Director, SEK, Helsinki, Finland
Jari is the Executive Creative Director at SEK I Part of Grey, Helsinki. Having spent almost three decades working in design and communications in different parts of the world Jari moved back to his native Finland in 2013 and joined SEK I Part of Grey.
Originally educated as an industrial designer specialising in brand management Jari formerly founded the Brand Development agency Grow in Stockholm, Sweden, held a position as a Creative Director of Lowe Nordic and Lowe Brindfors in Stockholm, Sweden and worked as an Art Director at DDB in London, Munich, Vienna, and Los Angeles.
His over 20-year career spans involvement with international brand turnover projects and includes extended periods as a driving creative force behind revitalisation of several major global brands including: Audi, Saab, Lexus, Electrolux, Scandinavian Airlines and Helly Hansen.
He sits on GREY EMEA creative council and judges creative work on GREY Global Creative Council.
Jari is an adrenaline junkie, a free skier, kitesurfer and sail racer and he hates spam.
Žarko Veljković, Creative Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Belgrade, Serbia
Žarko is the guardian of brands who thinks differently. His forte is developing creative strategies and has an extensive knowledge of brand positioning. He deals with expansion of digital platforms and his innovative solutions go beyond clients’ briefs. Žarko specializes in web design and digital communications. He also directs commercials and short films – when it comes to TV production, there is nothing he cannot do. He unmistakably detects new trends in advertising as well as communications, technology and the world in general. He has won numerous local awards in all major categories. In addition, he received several international awards: Cannes Lions, Golden Drum, Epica, Eurobest, Cresta, Cristal, AD Stars, New York Festivals, EACA Care Award, Adforum, and Webit.
Ricardo Wolff, Creative Director, DDB Berlin, Germany
Ricardo started his copywriting career at DDB Berlin after graduating from Miami Ad School in 2006. Within the following years he worked for local and international clients such as Ikea and Volkswagen, helping DDB reach the top of the German creative ranking in 2009. The following year he joined AlmapBBDO in Brazil to form the agency’s first hybrid team, developing fully integrated campaigns for HP, Volkswagen, Audi, Getty Images and Billboard. In 2013 Ricardo moved to BBDO Berlin as a Creative Director on the Daimler Smart brand, and more recently has returned to DDB Berlin to lead the Volkswagen International account, also as Creative Director. Ricardo’s work has been recognized over 100 times by major industry festivals like the Cannes Lions, One Show, D&AD, Clio, and ADC.
