Addressing the delegates

• 9.3.2011 •

Dear Mayor of Istanbul, Mister Kadir Topbaš,
respected guests and colleagues,
dear friends!
I have spent a week here in this beautiful city We have been working hard together with jury members of the fourth Intercontinental Advertising Cup. They came from Australia and Miami, from Malaysia and Buenos Aires, from Europe … and all of us have cold-hot experience.
We really didn’t expect a snow storm in Istanbul and we were surprised with so warm hospitality. And above all we were proved right in our gut feeling that creative industries could find here their home here. (?)
It’s very popular now to speak about creative industries, in which the human mind, inspiration and creativity are more important than capital, machines and low-cost labor.
And if we agree that advertising is the strongest accelerator of business and economy, it obviously follows that advertising can also be the most important bridge to other creative industries.
It is a no-brainer that Istanbul is an ideal place for the fusion of very diverse ideas from all parts of the world and from many complementary creative fields, but there is also something even more important: creativity needs fresh air and lives on optimism.
I don’t know any other major city in the world that radiates optimism as strongly as Istanbul does today.
More the 30 thousand creative ideas from four continents were preselected at four biggest continental advertising competitions, more than 700 were judged in Istanbul this week, 200 were nominated and 36 will be awarded tonight.
Best of the best, crème de la crème of locally inspired creative messages to the consumers; to the people we are living and communicating with.
I sincerely hope it is not the last time that we meet in this beautiful and hospitable city where creativity has found its new home and that the ISTANBUL CUP will became the most desired distinction for creative people around the world.
The imagination of more the 400 young creatives participating at our open contest for best Istanbul CUP poster and slogan were very clear –

ISTANBUL TO BE CONTINUED
Thank you very much for coming and enjoy the creative inspiration from four corners of the earth!