Sarie selects 36 finalists for Cover Face competition

The finalists, presented in the July issue of the magazine, out now, will be whittled down to the top 10 finalists in the August issue. Finally, one winner from each of the two categories, 18-30 years and 31 and older, will be selected but only one will grace the October 2014 cover, as Sarie's 2014 Cover Face.

"Confidence, eyes that smile and gorgeous, shining hair greeted us with the thousands of entries. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that this competition would excite and motivate our readers to the extent that it has," says Michélle van Breda, the magazine's editor.

Readers were able to enter via post or online and expectations were exceeded as more than 3.5 million page impressions were generated from 212,000 unique users during 324,000 online sessions at the end of the entry phase (Google Analytics). The magazine saw many memes doing the rounds on social media during the rating stage during which close to 200,000 people rated the entrants during the first phase. This is a firm indication that the digital campaign has fulfilled its promise and has gone viral.