My South Africa wins Gold

Scott Berg, director of digital strategy at Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the jury, commented, "By answering critical questions about insights, strategy, solutions and results, these award winners demonstrate how much can be achieved for brands, regardless of the economic climate."

Rani R Raad, SVP ad sales, CNN International added, "This is yet another acknowledgement of the enduring success of this innovative campaign and a credit to all involved. For a media owner to compete and win against full service creative agencies is an achievement we're most proud of"

"We congratulate CNN International on this award, which re-affirms that South Africa's current global campaign is not only connecting with consumers, but also showcases our ability to leverage online platforms with tailor-made campaigns that bring our diverse travel experience to life," said Roshene Singh, chief marketing officer, SA Tourism.

The awards are a response to marketers asking for international best practice examples of digital solutions that enhance brands and bring results. They are also an acknowledgment of how today's marketing strategies are affected by the growth of new digital options.

The campaign

In June 2008, CNN International joined with South African Tourism (SA Tourism) to produce its first ever user-generated content-driven advertising solution, geared towards raising the profile of South Africa to CNN's elite audience of business and leisure travellers.

The partnership was designed to capture the zeitgeist of shared multimedia experiences through a multimedia brand campaign, My South Africa, driven via the website www.mysouthafrica.tv.

In 2009, the multimedia campaign entered its second year and the elements were refreshed to build awareness to stimulate action on the current offerings and to better expose South Africa to potential visitors on a worldwide scale.

CNN produced new 'call to action' TV commercials and additional online components to involve consumers in a two-way dialogue, prompting an emotional response from the audience. The web space was re-focused to maximise interactivity, by allowing users to upload and share their experiences and to download the ambassadors' video content. The new elements increased user interactivity on the site in several areas allowing SA Tourism to better understand its customers and build on the campaign.

New elements to complement TV commercials

New elements and features were built into the website to complement three new television commercials. The new site includes a weather section tracking the weather in the top 50 South African cities (by population) and an RSS feed of news stories that linked directly back to the SA Tourism website, allowing both brands to share traffic.

The CNN-created My South Africa commercials are being streamed on SA Tourism's YouTube channel and the commercials are running on Virgin Atlantic Airways' in-flight entertainment system with all commercials pushing to the website. This is a partnership, which significantly expands the reach of the campaign and message to a global traveller audience.