Not only did it ultimately helped push back Day Zero, but it also positioned Atmosphere’s client, Sanlam within the water conversation.

Sanlam has had a longstanding focus on water conservation. Cape Town’s drought crisis gave it the opportunity to rally the nation to fight together against Day Zero.

With the insight that the bathroom accounts for 80% of consumption, with showers using 10l p/m, the agency focused on the City’s request for people to shower in two minutes or less. Tapping into the insight that people love to sing in the shower, they convinced 10 of the country’s biggest artists to recreate two-minute versions of their hits and launched 2-Minute Shower Songs.

This fully integrated campaign was perfectly timed around peak tourist month, when millions of visitors put further strain on municipal water supply. In just six weeks, they rallied residents and visitors to reduce their water use.

The Mayor of Cape Town praised Sanlam for being one of the first corporates to heed the call to get behind the cause, and their efforts helped to push Day Zero back by 59 days. According to Patricia de Lille, Mayor of Cape Town:

This amazing campaign shows that private sector players are using our City messages to drive their own water-awareness campaigns. We can only make it through this drought together and what a fun way to play your part by jamming in the shower for two minutes or less, to some great songs by our top talents.

The campaign grabbed local and international headlines, delivered 147-million impressions and drove 3.4-million engagements.

The results speak for themselves

Create national and international awareness of campaign to empower Capetonians and visitors with a practical way to reduce water use:

• 147,203,715 impressions
• 1,671,500 video views
• 95% top-tier media exposure
• 100% key message penetration

Generate public interest on the topic of water saving and talkability around ‘2 Minute Showers Songs’

• 22,694 unique website visits
• 145,091 click-throughs (0.21%: Google, 0.65%: GDN, 1.46%: Facebook and Instagram)
• Average of 3.24 minutes spent on site per session
• 1,696,638 engagements
• 590 karaoke voice notes sent to Heart and KFM in one week

Encourage consumers to actively reduce their daily water consumption by downloading/streaming the 2-Minute Shower Songs playlist

• 4,360 free downloads
• 2,345 free streaming
• 776 paid downloads

Position Sanlam as a leading voice in the drought crisis conversation and demonstrate its role in the fight against Day Zero

• 98% Sanlam brand mention
• Helped to push Day Zero back by 59 days

Judges of finalists

• Marilyn Watson
• Ruth Kolevsohn
• Katherine Madley
• Doug de Villers
• Ashraf Garda
• Daniel Munslow
• Vincent Magwenya
• Simone Carter
• Siya Sangweni-Fynn

Judges of Campaign of the Year category entries

• Marilyn Watson
• Doug de Villers
• Shenanda Janse van Rensburg
• Jonathan Rees
• Arun Sudhaman
• Vincent Magwenya
• Maxim Behar
• Havard Kleppa – B-M Norway
• Simbongile Ndlangisa

Judges’ comments

The X factor is collaboration – Katherine Madley, group executive of product marketing, Alexander Forbes

Award winners have one thing in common: creativity leads them. The creative idea comes before communication platforms, before egos and before baked-in marketing plans and budgets. Once the big idea is decided on then the players collaborate their skills – that’s how they win.

The idea needs to connect the clearly articulated target markets with the requisite product and/or brand promise and that, agency, is your part. Marketer: you need to know your brand, products and markets better than anyone else in your category.

The only thing limiting an idea is budget (clever planners, strategists and creatives find ways arounds this). What suffocates and dilutes an idea is interference and committee (difficult to avoid on the client side).

PR winners put the idea first and then connect the dots expertly with paths of addictive content between the brand and the audiences, especially reaching non-target audiences, growing the brand and its top line.

A solid understanding – Ruth Kolevsohn, chief operating officer, Burson-Marsteller

It was encouraging to see the number of integrated campaigns which were entered this year.

While it is hard for ‘PR on a shoestring’ campaigns to compete with those that are backed by significant ATL spend, we have seen a solid understanding of the key audiences in some entries as well as how to reach them through targeted communications, rather than the knee-jerk approach through mass media communication.

Good public relations really is based on a solid understanding of who the audiences are and how to reach them most directly, with messages that resonate with them. We also saw really creative and clever ideas to leverage newsjacking opportunities, increasing the clients’ share of voice by leading conversations on key societal issues.

What was really heartening were the efforts made to advise clients on how best to spend their money, rather than just taking a brief and delivering on what was asked. However, more emphasis needs to be put on delivering real value to clients.

Too often, communication objectives focus on measuring reach and dissemination, but we need to evolve as an industry to the point where we spend the time to understand the client’s underlying business objectives and set communication targets which are linked to achieving sales, increasing market share or share price, legislative influence or employee attraction and retention.

Simbongile Ndlangisa, operations director at Melenial

About 30% of the entries were A+, with the rest hovering between ordinary and mediocre.

It was definitely about whether the campaign goals were achieved and how, but especially, the existence of the 'wow' factor.

2018 finalists

Hollard Daredevil Run 2017
Agency: Tribeca Public Relations
Client: Hollard

The 2017 Hollard Daredevil Run (HDDR) was the most successful in the event’s seven-year history. Tribeca aggressively drove awareness of male-specific cancers (testicular, prostate) during the campaign (December 2016 to March 2017) to educate men that early detection saves lives.

The 5km run of purple Speedo-clad men was held simultaneously in four cities, with proceeds to Cansa to sustain the Hollard-branded ManVan, a mobile clinic educating rural men about cancers, and administering free Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) tests.

The result: Of the 9,074 tests in 2017, 337 abnormalities were detected, and 319 men went for further testing. The 2017 campaign raised the most awareness ever, drove the most entries, leading to the highest donation to Cansa ever at R648,000.

Uk’Shona Kwelanga
Agency: Atmosphere and the King James Group
Client: Sanlam Sky Solutions Project: Uk’Shona Kwelanga

Many South Africans don’t have funeral cover, which causes major drama among family members when a loved one passes away, and the costs can be crippling. Sanlam wanted to demonstrate its deep understanding of the cultural context and differentiate its offering in a cluttered and competitive category.

Uk’Shona Kwelanga, an original drama series told through the most popular digital platform among our audience, WhatsApp, was created. The audience followed the Langa family in real-time, in the seven days leading up to the funeral of the deceased father.

The result: 44,000 subscribers. 850,000 minutes of content consumed. 93% completion rate. The impact: 146% increase in leads conversion.

#Respek Nation
Agency: DNA Brand Architects
Client: Steers

The Steers #Respek Nation campaign broke boundaries, becoming the most successful PR-led campaign that the brand has seen in over a year.
To launch their all new Rib King Burger Promotion, the brand plugged into urban culture through strategic partnerships with leading influencers and platforms who are custodians of the culture.

The result: This resulted in a dynamically executed campaign activated through digital and social media platforms that had a resounding contribution to the business objectives shifting over 350,000 units in November 2017 at a contribution of 8.2% to overall turnover.

50 years of AMG
Agency: ByDesign Communications
Client: Mercedes-Benz of South Africa

To celebrate the 50-year anniversary of their AMG high-performance brand in South Africa, the brand wanted people to sit up and take notice. They wanted a raw, visceral connection with the South African motoring public that made people grin like idiots and cross busy roads to take a look.

Using the key insight – that people “just love the distinctive AMG “growl”, the unmistakeable signature sound of the AMG engine – ByDesign brought the “growl” to life.

The result: The campaign reached more than 26 million people with 18 million video views and counting and 80,000 clicks.

More importantly, it delivered the business objective. The 50-years of AMG campaign led to a significant increase in Mercedes's social share of voice in the automotive vertical in South Africa, increasing from 11.5% to 30.4%.