Marcus Brewster Publicity (MBP) scored a hat trick at this month's PRISM Awards for PR excellence by winning for the third successive year. The consultancy's brace of awards including Silver overall, makes MBP the industry's highest rated PR consultancy in South Africa. |
| Pieter Meyer (Emerald Casino Resort Marketing & Sales Manager), Leanne Manas (PRISM Awards MC) and Marcus Brewster (CEO: Marcus Brewster Publicity) with some of the trophies awarded to the agency at this year's PRISA PRISM Awards. The agency's Emerald Spring Derby won in the Special Events category and earned a Silver Award overall - the highest ranking for a PR consultancy in SA. |
MBP's campaign for client, the Emerald Casino Resort, was the winner in the category for Special Events. That campaign, the Emerald Spring Derby Race Day, also earned the consultancy the PRISM Silver Award.
"Winning the Special Events category is a strategically important achievement for us," says Brewster. "For years, people have thought that publicity was the only string to our bow. Since we repositioned our offering to clients a year ago, we have been doing exciting work in the fields of advocacy and lobbying, internal communications, sponsorship, brand activations and marketing communications - married to our traditional skill set of media relations and publicity.
"What made the Emerald Casino Resort entry a winner was that we were very clear in our strategy to align deliverables to specific sales objectives and quantitative benchmarks. Our Emerald Spring Derby campaign, conceptualized and implemented by MBP Gauteng account director, Hein Kaiser, over-delivered on all of its targets," says Brewster. "These included a 15% increase over target on casino handle and table drop, a 100% increase in race day attendance and all beds sold in the resort over that weekend."
This year, awards were made in 12 categories. The Gold and Silver Awards were presented for campaigns "that are world class" according to a PRISA past president and PRISM judge, Anthea Johnson. The PRISM Gold Award went to the Public Service category winner, the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.
In addition to winning the two awards, Brewster was also a finalist in the category Traditional Media Relations. The FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005 campaign, brought to you by AXE, generated copy sales of 160 416 of the 100 Sexiest poll issue, a 37% increase on FHM's then circulation. Directly attributable publicity value for sponsors AXE was R1.1 million, overachieving enormously on the objective of R100 000. Total publicity value achieved was R5.3 million.
At last year's ceremony (2005), the agency had a clean sweep in the consumer marketing categories taking home awards in recognition for long-time Brewster clients Louis Vuitton (Best New Product or Service) and FHM (Best Existing Product or Service). In 2004, Brewster dominated the awards with six nominations and a trophy win in the category Best Media/Publicity Relations.
The PRISA PRISM Awards are presented to public relations and communication professionals who have successfully incorporated strategy, creativity and professionalism into public relations and communication programmes and strategies that showcase a successful public relations campaign. The awards are open to all consultancies in South Africa, not just PRISA members.
