Outdoor exposure for music awards

In order to promote the 12th Annual MTN SA Music Awards in public places throughout South Africa, sponsor MTN has commissioned an outdoor campaign that includes billboards, posters, targeted shopping centre adverts and more to complement an above-the-line campaign currently profiling the upcoming awards.

MTN SA MD Maanda Manyatshe explains that the visible outdoor element to MTN's raft of marketing and advertising strategy is part of the sponsor's vision to "take the awards to the people... In the end, South African music runs on two groups - the artists who create music and the fans who listen to it and it's to these fans that we are really talking to through our concerted outdoor campaign."

The 12th Annual MTN SA Music Awards take place on 6 May 2006 at Sun City. The decision to use real artists - Arno Carstens, Judith Sephuma and Bongo Maffin - in the campaign is in line with the Awards' focus on celebrating the achievements of South African artists.

Using the Y&R campaign line of "Be a part of it", the intention is to motivate the public to identify with the premier award ceremony in South Africa, primarily through interacting by voting for the two public-voted awards and tuning into the ceremony when it is broadcast live on SABC1 on 6 May 2006 at 8pm. The campaign also encourages music fans in the region to attend the Sun City event.

"Voting for the Most Popular Song and Most Popular Artist are the two areas that ordinary music fans can have their say in this year's events and it's important that the information about how to do this and whose in the running is in the faces of these people," Manyathshe explains.