Both Nicky James, co-founder and director of Tribeca and Mike Sharman, owner of Retroviral, were thrilled at the Award. “While we have entered the Prism Awards before, this is the first time we have entered the South African Campaign of the Year Award,” says James.

Mike Sharman, owner of Retroviral and Nicky James, co-founder and director of Tribeca Public Relations.

Their motivation to enter the category was because the campaign had exceeded the given business objectives. The results speak for themselves, with over 23,000 votes cast on with over 35,000 burgers sold. No surprise then that the campaign has been lauded as the most successful campaign in the brand’s history.

James says this success is based on Rocomamas knowing and understanding who their community is and then engaging with them through the right channels and right messaging. “Rocomamas understood that their target audience need to be engaged through social media, and that they would support messaging that came from these channels. Voting for their favourite burger through social media was therefore a clever business tactic that yielded the desired results.”

Amazing evening @TribecaPR 2 golds, 3 silvers AND the Gold SA Campaign of the Year for RocoMama's #ElectionBurger ❤️ my team pic.twitter.com/EXSnxC3dy5

— Nicky James (@nickyjamo) May 6, 2017

This is not the first time that the two agencies have partnered. “We have worked with Retroviral since they launched and regularly pass on business between the two agencies. Key to this is knowing each other’s strengths,” says James.

“We pitched this partnership to the judges that this is what best practice for PR should be,” adds Sharman.

Fuck yeah - we just won gold at the PR awards for Social media with no paid media spend for #electionburger #prisms2017

— Mike Sharman (@mikesharman) May 6, 2017

The nationwide election campaign was implemented at every RocoMamas restaurant, with burger contenders campaigning for customer votes. The campaign was launched during the final rally of the US Elections with three limited-edition burger candidates representing the unique personalities of the US Election candidates: #TheDonald, #TheHillBill and #TheJoker. Results were announced on 7 November, the day before the US Election results were released, with #TheJoker as the overall campaign winner. The results were shared on all social channels.

The other nominees and Silver PRISM Award winners are Atmosphere Communications – for its #ConspicuousSaving for Sanlam, ByDesign Communcations for the launch of #VaginaVaristy for Libresse, Havas PR South Africa for 'Rugby That’s so Gay' for The Jozi Cats and PR Worx, for the campaign 'Mimi Women Shock Box' for Mimi Women.

The judges of the South African Campaign of the Year were at pains to point out that the top 5 finalist campaigns were highly contested, and much higher than the previous two years. What made the RocoMamas entry stand out from the other entries was that it addressed a business result and reported effectively on a bottom-line business need.

“It has all the elements of a winning campaign – it was creative, innovative, engaging and had the wow factor. It was bold, different, very timely,” says Munslow.

The 2017 Prism Awards took place at The Park House of Events on 7 at the Hyde Park Shopping Centre in Sandton. This was the 20th year of the Awards.