SA agencies perform strongly across the Smarties Business Impact Index

Source: Bizcommunity. The Smarties 2022 Awards entries are now open

Duke is also first in the Agency Network category for Africa, and in the advertisers, Unilever, Tiger Brands and Matchkit came first, second and third respectively in the Africa category.

AdColony is second in the Solution Provider Regional category and Wunderman Thompson came third in the Creative Agencies Regional category for the EMEA region.

“These wins really go to show the quality of the work that our South African agencies produce and their use of up-to-the-minute technologies,” says MMA SA country director, Sarah Utermark.

The MMA Smarties Business Impact Index (BII) is the first and only global mobile marketing index that identifies, ranks and awards top agencies, advertisers, brands and technology enablers driving significant business impact through modern marketing across the global MMA’s 14 regions.

Entrants are adjudicated according to the World Advertising Research Centre’s (Warc) judges and criteria. South African entrants were submitted into the Africa and EMEA categories.

Great use of NFTs

“Yonder produced an exceptional piece of work for KFC where they pushed the envelope when it comes to using new, largely web 3.0 technologies,” says Utermark.

“For instance, Yonder made great use of NFTs in its KFC Bucket campaign where consumers could hunt for NFTs through their smartphones in-store and when found, redeem them for a burger, shake or a meal,” she explains.

The results were stellar and 120 000 NFTs were ‘found’ across 80 stores.

Rick Joubert, Yonder CEO says that while the agency invested heavily in growing its Meta ecosystem and Web3 capability, it has also remained committed to the legacy brand solutions which serve the needs of the average developing market consumer.

“Even when it comes to the exciting new world of the metaverse, NFTs and AR, we are firm believers in easy-access tech which enable brands to run campaigns at scale,” he says.

Smarties 2022 Awards open

In addition to the BII winners the MMA launched the Smarties 2022 Awards, with entries now open.

Considering the Smarties 2022 categories this year, Utermark says that web 3.0 has become very popular in recent years and is why the MMA has chosen to include it among the 2022 Smarties 24 categories, allowing agencies, brands and tech enablers to enter work utilising this new technology.

“The Smarties have always been on the cutting edge of modern mobile innovation, and while the existing categories for Marketing Impact and Emerging media remain, there are new additions to reflect the fast-changing marketing environment,” she explains.

“This is also why the MMA has changed its name from the Mobile Marketing Association to the Modern Marketing Association. Our organisation represents far more than just mobile, as campaigns evolve into digital and interactive marketing, while mobile remains at its core,” adds Utermark.

The full list of BII winners can be found here

Enter the Smarties Awards 2022 here.