It's the MOST wonderful time of the year

Adding to that, the agency also walked away with the overall MOST Award for Media Agencies, a feat it has accomplished four out of five years.

The MediaShop receiving their MOST Media Agency of the Year Award.

In winning the Awards, Chris Botha, MD of The MediaShop, acknowledged The MediaShop’s 150 people. “From HR to finance, planning and strategy this Awards comes for 150 people at the MediaShop. You are the best team ever and there is no-one else I would ever go to war with.”

DStv won the Television MOST Award and the MOST Award for Media Owners 2016. Chris Hitchings, CEO of DStv Media Sales, was ecstatic at the recognition. “It’s been a while since we won, so this means the world to us.”

Held at Wanderers in Johannesburg, the Awards saw the who’s who of the media industry gather to celebrate their best. Honours went to industry stalwarts Barry Sayer who was recognised as this year’s MOST Media Legend, and Josh Dovey, who was awarded MOST Media Agency Legend.

Receiving his award, Sayer acknowledged the industry. “An Award like this does not come alone. Our team has done a huge job. I also want to pay tribute to my competitors for keeping us on our toes.”

Celebrating exceptional teams

Founded eight years ago by Sandra Gordon, the MOST Awards recognises media owners and agencies for their professionalism and is an annual measure of the service efficacy of providers in the South African media industry.

Every year, media agency employees are invited to rate the performance of the media owner sales teams with whom they have frequent contact, and vice versa. This year, 268 respondents participated in the media owners’ survey – an increase on last year’s 233, while just short of 4,000 votes were cast for the various companies.

The Awards are conducted annually as a market research survey administered by Freshly Ground Insights (FGI). To ensure the Awards are current and relevant, every year the MOST Awards pull together legends and leaders to come to a forum to review the MOST Awards. This year there were a couple of quite fundamental changes were made to the methodology. “The performance criteria to rate and review companies was changed, the questionnaire’s online structure was revamped, and some new categories were introduced,” explains Brad Aigner, MD of FGI.

One such new category is the Bell Award, which recognises an individual who is not immediately part of the agency/owner environment, yet has substantially contributed to the betterment of the industry. The first winner of the Award is Jos Kuper, the founder of Kuper Research and a key figure behind the futurefact research survey.

Media Owner Rising Star Award went to Wanele Mngomezulu of the MSG Afrika Group, where he is group commercial director and MD of MSG Group Sales. Ilse Gräbe was recognised as the MOST Media Agency Rising Star for her role as strategic director at Carat, despite having left the industry to work on the client side for Heineken where she is communications and engagement manager. Gräbe says people are the key to success in the industry. “You have to recognise the importance of people and the relationships you forge. I am only who I am today because of that.”

Lerato Tsotestsi was also awarded a course from Boston Media House worth over R100,000.

This year no MOST Shepherd Award was awarded. The Award, which recognises a person’s exceptional contribution to the industry, has only been awarded twice since its inception in 2013. In Paul Middleton was the first recipient, and last year the Award was given to Gordon Patterson. “In consultation with Paul and the shocking death of our friend and colleague, Gordon, we agreed not to award the trophy this year. The timing is wrong, the memory of Gordon’s death still lingers,” Sandra Gordon, founder of the MOST Awards says.

WINNERS

Media owner radio award

3. United Stations
2. Primedia Broadcasting
1. Mediamark Radio

Media owner TV award

3. eNCA
2. e.tv
1. DStv Media Sales

Media owner cinema

2. Cinevation popcorn
1. Cinemark

Media owner OOH

3. Provantage
2. JCDecaux
1. Primedia Outdoor

Media owner newspapers

3. Independent Media Group
2. Spark Media
1. Times Media Group

Media owner magazines award

3. Ndalo Media
2. Caxton Magazines
1. Media 24 lifestyle

Media owner digital award

3. The SpaceStation
2. Google Inc.
1. Mark1

Media owner lamb award

3. Mamela Media
2. Ramsay Media
1. MASSIV Media

Media sales consultancy award

MMAP

Media owner African award

3. Alliance Media
2. DStv Media Africa
1. JCDecaux

Media agency Africa award

OMG Africa

Specialist media agency award

2. Mediology
1. Aegis Media Central Services

Media agency lamb award

3. PhD Cape Town
2. Vizeum Cape Town
1. Hitch Digital Media

Full service agency award

3. OMD Johannesburg
2. Mindshare
1. The MediaShop Johannesburg

Media agency of the year

3. Aegis Media Central Buying Services
2. Mindshare
1. The MediaShop Johannesburg

Media owner of the year

3. Media24 Lifestyle
2. Mediamark Radio
1. DStv Media Sales

Click here for a gallery of images from the night.