#Prisms2017 winners: Atmosphere and the King James Group

11 May 2017

The Public Relations Institute of South Africa's (Prisa) Prism Awards is Southern Africa's premier awards for public relations excellence. The Awards are presented to public relations and communication professionals who have successfully incorporated strategy, creativity and professionalism into public relations and communication programmes and strategies that showcase successful public relations campaigns.

I chatted to some of the gold winners following the 2017 awards ceremony...

Prisa 2017 Prism Awards campaign of the year winners.

All the 2017 Prisa Prism Award winners!

6 May 2017

Atmosphere walked off with nine awards at the 20th annual Prism Awards – crowning the agency as the most awarded PR agency in the history of the local awards. Nicola Nel, MD of Atmosphere Communications, tells us what winning the award means for the agency and what they plan to do going forward to keep winning these types of prestigious awards. Dan Pinch, executive creative director of PR and social media at the King James Group, also weighs in on the awards they have received in collaboration with Atmosphere.

Congratulations on being crowned most awarded PR agency at the 2017 Prisa Prism Awards! Tell us more about this year's wins for the company.

Dan Pinch, ECD at the King James Group

"Thanks, it was a good year for Atmosphere – we took home nine awards in total, including three golds, a silver in the ‘South African Campaign of the Year’ and the highest award given this year in the ‘Mid-Sized Consultancy’, a silver.” – Nicola Nel, MD of Atmosphere Communications

“Looking at our campaigns that won this year I think there are some strong similarities in what made them award winners. They were informed by a strong insight; they had a single-minded idea at their core; they broke category marketing conventions and they pushed the idea across multiple platforms and disciplines to live up to its full potential. What’s great about the Prism awards is that it proves that this kind of approach can have measurable business results.” - Dan Pinch, executive creative director of PR and social media at the King James Group.

What are the entry and judging criteria for the 'Social media as the primary method of communication' category, for which you won a gold, while the other gold for the same campaign was in the financial services category.

Nicola Nel, MD at Atmosphere

"The 'Social media as the primary method of communication’ category rewards excellence in the use of social media as a leading public relations tool. But some background on the campaign first. Our client, Sanlam challenged us and our partners, King James, to conceptualise a National Savings Month campaign so as to take on one of the biggest causes of debt and poor savings - conspicuous spending – a phenomenon fuelled by ostentatious celebrities on social media channels. We secretly recruited actress, Pearl Thusi and multi-platinum rapper, Cassper Nyovest – two celebrities known for energetic spending – to twist their VIP lifestyles portrayed on their social feeds from conspicuous spending to conspicuous saving. Their fans were shocked by, but approving of their frugal, penny-pinching behaviour.

Our approach led to measurable results, once again positioning Sanlam as the leading voice on saving during National Savings Month. The feedback from the judges was that the campaign “… created talkability about the ways we spend money by influencing a change of behaviour. Excellent strategic rationale and use of relevant influencers to amplify the message. A brilliant campaign with results that followed.” - Nicola

Nicola, this isn't the first time you’ve received recognition at these particular awards. Please tell us about your agency's previous Prism Award wins.
Prisa says we are currently the most awarded PR agency in their 20-year history. Hopefully proving that we are not a one-hit wonder! We’ve been delivering award-winning work that leads to business results for almost a decade. And by pure coincidence, we entered our first campaign in 2009 and won a gold for Sanlam Investments in that year, and this was now topped by two gold awards for Sanlam eight years later.

What's your winning recipe?

Atmosphere’s DNA is about creating a winning culture where we can deliver innovative work that delivers results. It was our building blocks 15-years ago, and it is still today.