Pictured on stage: Retroviral and Flow Communications. Retroviral won Gold for the Checkers Sixty60 Swindler campaign and Silver for its Lilets Be You. Period. campaign and Flow Communications won Bronze for Marine Protected Areas Day (MPA Day).

The agency's Don't Get Swindled campaign for Checkers Sixty60 won the award at the Prisa Prism Awards 2022 that took place on 15 July at The Venue, Melrose Arch in Gauteng. The sold-out event celebrated the 25th year of the Prism Awards.

In total, the agency won six Prism Awards for the campaign. It also won Silver for its Lilets Be You. Period campaign in the SA Campaign of the Year Award, which also won six Prism Awards in total. Flow Communications won Bronze in the category for its Marine Protected Areas Day (MPA Day) campaign.

Last year, Panther Punch and Retroviral won the South African Campaign of the Year award for their #MyKreepyTeacher campaign for Kreepy Krauly, a parody of the Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher, produced by South African Craig Foster.

Most successful digital marketing campaign

Don’t Get Swindled is the most successful Checker Sixty60 digital marketing campaign and its most viral campaign ever, generating more than five million views. With over 2.5 million in free editorial coverage, it increased traffic into the app and positively impacted sales.

The campaign is a spoof on The Tinder Swindler documentary on Netflix that broke into the top 10 charts of the most watched Netflix content across 92 countries including Sa within the first week of being added to the streaming service.

Using traditional and “new” tools and platforms

The campaign is an example of how a PR campaign can utilise traditional PR, branded content, news hijacking tactics and digital PR and move quickly. The campaign went from idea to execution within 12 hours leading to “Simon Leviev” speaking out against his enemies in a post that went out simultaneously to all major social networks, including TikTok.

The agency also leveraged online reputation management tools such as Social Bakers and its workflow software to analyse every like/retweet/comment on the social posts and pitched additional info to relevant journalists, influencers where applicable and shared updates on the video’s success every time they hit an additional one million views. This created new interest in the campaign daily.

In its pitch to Prism Awards, the agency says, “The campaign paired an instinctive insight with a brave client, unheard of turnaround times and an agency and production company racing against the clock of relevance to own a global cultural inflexion point.”

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Challenger brand for the challenger brand

"In a world of cluttered communication data offerings and programmatic media being targeted down our throats, Retroviral prides itself on having made more brands go viral globally than any other agency in Africa," says Mike Sharman, owner of Retroviral.

"Earned media eliciting actions is what we’ve been consistently delivering for 12 years and it’s an incredibly proud moment converting 12 wins for Checkers Sixty60 and Lil-Lets. Now more than ever our ‘challenger brand for the challenger brand’ positioning is resonating due to our branded content x PR efforts," he adds.

Big winners

Apart from Retroviral, Flow Communications and Positive Dialogue were amongst the big winners on the night.

Flow Communications won 21 Prism awards in total. "Flow doesn’t do work to win awards, but we are lucky enough to have had our hard work and creativity rewarded through the Prisms this year and in years gone by. We are thankful every time we have the opportunity to work with clients that let us get recognised in this way," said Flow CEO, Tara Turkington.

Agency Awards

In the Agency Awards, Flow Communications won gold for Large Agency of the Year, Silver went to Eclipse Communications and Bronze to DNA Brand Architects.

Magna Carta Reputation Management Consultant won gold for Medium Agency of the Year and Positive Dialogue won Silver with Bronze going to Tribeca Public Relations.

The Friday Street Club won Silver for Small Agency of the year and Bronze went to Bonfire Media.
Sika Creative Agency won Silver for Best Upcoming Agency, with Ulivo & Co.Communications taking Bronze.

Silver Best PR professional was won by Cherná Lutta and Gold for Best Upcoming PR Professional was won by Zakra Fridie, both from Positive Dialogue. Emmanuel Bonoko won Bronze in Best PR professional. Paballo Mokale (Weber Shandwick) and Elizabeth Ibironke (Africa Communications Media Group) won Silver and Bronze respectively for Best Upcoming PR Professional.

The Gold Lifetime Achievement Award went to Thebe Ikalafeng founder of Brand Africa.

All the Prism Awards 2022 winners