2021 SA Smarties Awards winners turn lemons into lemonade

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Honoured across 25 categories, the 38 judges have remarked that the quality of work submitted this season far exceeded their expectations – especially when marketing budgets across the board were cut due to ongoing Covid-19 challenges.

Producing work on point

“The impact of the pandemic was felt on brands’ pockets, and as we all know, among the first things to go is marketing spend. This did not deter the Smarties Awards winners who turned lemons into lemonade, producing work that was on-point and relevant to the times that we live in and where every cent counts,” comments Luisa Mazinter, MMA SA chair emeritus Smarties Awards.

These sentiments were echoed by the judges who expressed the need for brands to show real return on investment and that mobile marketing technologies can solve business problems by engaging target audiences in an authentic way, resulting in strong calls-to-action.

An emphasis on business results

“Where the Smarties is distinct is that it places a weighting of 40% on business outcomes, while strategy, creativity and execution account for 20% each.

“The reason for these splits is to ensure that the campaigns that are awarded are producing results that impact the business positively and are not only creative executions for the sake of it; there is no room for fluff,” comments Mazinter.

Pendoring Multilingual Marketing Efficiency Award

The 2021 Smarties also saw the introduction of the Pendoring Multilingual Marketing Efficiency Award in partnership with Hollard. The timing for the Award was opportune as it ties into the UN’s launch of the Decade of Indigenous Languages, which began this year in 2022 and ends in 2030.

Boniswa Pezisa, executive director at Mediology and Pendoring jury president, says of this important Award, “As a multicultural nation brands need to engage and reach their customers in their own languages. We have seen some of the entries use language in an amazing way and they’ve broken through with their marketing efforts.”

As is traditional of the Smarties Awards, all winners – Gold, Silver and Bronze – will be entered into the global Mobile Marketing Associations’ Business Impact Index (BII) Awards. Launched in 2018 it is the first and only global mobile marketing Index that identifies, ranks and awards top agencies, brands and technology enablers that drive significant business impact through mobile-first campaigns.

Of the best work ever

“We congratulate all the winners from the 2021 Awards, the level of work is among the best we have ever had. This is a real boon especially given the conditions in which the work was being implemented,” concludes Mazinter.

An Awards ceremony will take place on 6 April in Johannesburg to give the winners their trophies. The 2021 BII winners will also be announced and theme for the 2022 Smarties Awards announced.

All the winners

All the 2021 winners can be viewed here.