SA agencies win gold at international PR excellence awards

South Africa won the gold awards in the categories "Overall Institutional" and the "Arts" respectively. The campaigns "Makoya Moola: Rands you can Trust", developed and executed by Magna Carta for the South African Reserve Bank and "Curtain Up! Act 1" developed by The Maverick Group for the Johannesburg Youth Theatre are the outright winners in each of these categories. The campaign for "Brand South Africa" developed for the International Marketing Council by Arcay Communications - GCI SA, received an Honourable Mention in the Category "Overall Institutional".

Arcay Communications was also a finalist in the category "Consumer Marketing for New Products and Services". The consultancy Text 100 competed as a finalist in the categories "Overall Institutional" and in "Business-to-Business Marketing". Cycad Communications was a finalist in the category "Consumer Marketing".

In total, 29 programmes from 11 different countries have been awarded the 2005 IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence in Public Relations in 23 categories. Awards were made to entries from Australia (1), Germany (1), Israel (1), Japan (1), Netherlands (1), Pakistan (1), Poland (4), Russian Federation (2), South Africa (2), Turkey (1), UK (4) and the USA (10).

The winners' list reflects the great diversity of public relations activities and the enormous talent within the industry worldwide. The focus of the campaigns included the introduction of a new currency note in South Africa, illegal file swapping of music on the internet, the recovery of an airline post 9/11 and a campaign to raise awareness of breast cancer in Pakistan.

Agency, Weber Shandwick headed the list of winners among international agencies with awards in six categories.

The competition's international jury, composed of 44 senior practitioners from 26 countries, completed its adjudication of 239 entries in Istanbul on 25 June 2005. Criteria used by the jury included the competence and quality of each entry demonstrated in terms of research, planning, execution and evaluation, the clarity of messages, creativity and ethics, as well as local conditions in the country of origin.

Winning entries addressed environmental, social and health issues that many countries are trying to deal with. These included programmes about dementia, youth depression, pollution of the North Sea and the need to deal with the waste of redundant technology. Jury Chairman Sheila O'Sullivan of Australia said: "these programmes devised successful communication activities for their local situation. The rest of the world can learn and benefit from these award winning campaigns."

Each year the jury votes for one of the Category Awards winners to go forward as overall winner. The Grand Prize for Excellence will be announced and presented, at the gala GWA dinner taking place in London on November 3, 2005.

The GWA United Nations Award, a co-operation between IPRA and the UN, to encourage public relations campaigns which meet the aims of the United Nations, will be judged and awarded later in the year.

"If one measures the South African PR Industry's gold achievement in the 2005 IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence against the performance of the country's national sports teams during last year's Olympic events, then the SA PR industry had brought home a far greater achievement," said Van der Straten Waillet, at the Johannesburg Press Club, where the awards were made yesterday.

"The South African industry, internationally, has always been regarded with great respect and, the standards set by the national professional body, the Public Relations and Communication Management Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) have been consistently high over many years," says Van der Straten Waillet. "South Africa's achievement in the 2005 IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence attests to the very high standards being upheld by the local PR industry which, sadly, does not always receive the recognition it deserves."

The seven South African finalist campaigns in the IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence 2005, represent five companies in four categories:

Category 1: Campaign [Overall Institutional]

Arcay Communications: SA with International Marketing Council
Magna Carta: South African Reserve Bank
Text 100: Business Software Alliance

Category 12: Consumer Marketing

Arcay Communications: Energizer (SA) Ltd (Category 12)
Cycad Communications: Clover

Category 15: Business-to business Marketing

Text 100: Motorola

Category 19: Arts

The Maverick Group: Johannesburg Youth Theatre Trust (JYT