Magna Carta scoops international PR award

Amongst a number of challenges that faced the campaign, the biggest consideration was to reach the diverse South African population in 11 official languages. This was further complicated by the challenge of reaching people in rural areas, with little or no access to traditional media and technology.

The high profile campaign consisted of a number of integrated sub campaigns to ensure that the message was conveyed to all South Africans, by engaging the commuter network, the community radio network, community organisations, the corporate sector and government institutions to spread the message of national importance.

"The size and scope of the campaign was extremely exciting. The challenge was to communicate information of national interest to all 44 million South Africans and to create strong awareness of the features within the upgraded banknotes," comments Michele Anderson, Managing Director of Magna Carta. "This was an unusual and a very exciting opportunity to test our skills across the board and challenged us to pursue non-traditional methods of communication."

Key wins in the campaign included media editorial return on investment of over R15 million; placement on popular soap opera, Egoli, referring to the notes in their script; newspaper cartoons featuring the banknotes; all four of the major commercial banks communicated information through their websites, newsletters, branch TV screens and/or ATM screens; major shopping centres displayed the campaign posters; the creation of a TV documentary informing the deaf community of the upgrade; and the placement of the campaign song on a variety of radio stations. Magna Carta estimates that the overall campaign reached approximately 24 million people directly through the use of various tactical communication elements.

"This year, the 'gold' at the IPRA Golden World Awards is testament to South Africa's high standard of public relations on a global scale and we are proud to represent our country in this international forum," concluded Anderson.

Overall, the winning entries for this years IPRA Golden World Awards addressed environmental, social and health issues that many countries are trying to deal with. These included programmes about dementia, youth depression, pollution of the North Sea and the need to deal with the waste of redundant technology. Jury Chairman Sheila O'Sullivan of Australia said: "These programmes devised successful communication activities for their local situation. The rest of the world can learn and benefit from these award winning campaigns."