MOST Awards 2015: All the winners

The MOST Awards is an independent web-based survey commissioned by Wag the Dog Publishers and conducted by Freshly Ground Insights (FGI) to inspire media agencies and media owners to improve their knowledge and service delivery to their clients. Media owners and media agencies vote for each other against criteria that have been set by the industry.

The MOST Legend and Rising Star Awards are presented to individuals in recognition of their commitment and integrity. Nominations for these awards are submitted by respondents to the survey and the winner was selected by a panel of previous winners using specially selected criteria. These awards cannot be won more than once by any nominee.

Winners were:

• Media Owner Legend - Chris Hitchings, CEO of DStv Media Sales;
• Media Agency Legend - Rob Smuts of RMS Media
• The Media Owner Rising Star - Brett Tucker, MD of Grass Roots Media
• Media Agency Rising Star - Ilan Lazarus of PHD, Cape Town

Leading media commentator and mentor, Gordon Patterson, received the MOST Shepherd Award, in recognition of his selfless contribution to the industry.

L-R: Patterson; Tucker; Hitchings; Lazarus; Smuts

The MOST Lamb Award, for companies that do not receive the minimum number of 30 votes, but who excel in terms of great service, went to media owner Mark1 (Digital) and media agency Posterscope, Johannesburg. Winner of the Best Specialist Agency award went to PHD, Johannesburg while The MediaShop in Johannesburg scored honours with the award for Best Full-Service Agency.

Media Owner category awards

The media owner category winners were varied and some were first-time winners. In the radio category, Mediamark Radio took the honours while Cinemark won in the Television/Cinema category. MMAP won in the Out of Home (OOH) category, the SpaceStation pipped other digital media owners to the post while Times Media Newspapers garnered the honours in the newspapers category and Caxton Magazines won the magazines category.

The MOST Africa Awards

Due to a growing interest in Africa as an economic growth area, a new category was introduced this year for media owners Africa sales teams and for South African based agencies that strategically plan and book media in the rest of Africa.

The MOST Africa Media Owner category was won by Primedia Outdoor Johannesburg while The MOST Africa Media Agency Award was won by Initiative Media, Johannesburg.

All the winners