Congratulations on scooping gold at the 2017 Prisa Prism Awards! Tell us more about this year's win for the company.

In 2014 and 2016 we won gold for 'Best Small PR Consultancy of the Year', this year we won gold for the 'PR on a Shoestring', a hotly contested category which saw 14 agencies in total entering. The reason we were so pleased with this particular win is that people often assume that award winning campaigns can only be done if clients have big budgets. But this category goes to show that a strategically creative idea, that in this case, provided a win-win solution to two parties, executed seamlessly, can result in a gold category win. That’s the main reason we were so proud of this particular award – it speaks to our level of creative and strategic thinking – which is a key value of our agency philosophy.

What are the entry and judging criteria for the ‘Public Relations on a Shoestring’ category?

The entry criteria for category needed to state the business problem, what research was conducted, what campaign planning was done, how it was executed and how the success of the campaign was evaluated or measured against direct business results (AVE’s are not considered a form of measurement). Our gold winning entry was able to show that as a result of our weFix Shark Spotters PR campaign we were able to decrease false shark sightings through the red flag system by 50% through the introduction of drone technology, which increased swimmer safety, and achieved a combined audience of 40 million people with an increased beach safety message across print, radio, and TV. In addition, weFix trebled their drone sales in the 2 month campaign period of November and December 2016.

This isn't the first time you've received recognition at these particular awards. Please tell us about your company's previous Prism Award wins.

In 2014 we won gold for 'Best Use of an Event to Build a Reputation', for our Robben Island Balloon Run campaign with Matt Silver-Vallance harnessing himself to 55 helium filled balloons and rising off Robben Island and ‘flying’ to Big Bay Lifesaving Club in order to raise funds for the Nelson Mandela Childrens Hospital. That campaign raised R1m in funds, achieved R55m in editorial coverage, with over 800 international pieces of coverage that firmly established Matt’s reputation as being a social change activist.