SA company wins global brand award

It was recognised for its rebranding of the South African Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC) to Public Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). This is the intermodal public transportation corporate brand that manages Metrorail, Shosholoza Meyl, Premier Classe, Translux and City to City and over 400 stations nationally. The company also received Merit and Notable mentions for its rebranding of ubank and SA Express respectively.

International jury

The 2011 jurors included Fred Gelli, creative director and partner, Tátil Design de Ideias in Brazil; Janelle James, vice president, account director, Leo Burnett Worldwide; Chris Butler, vice president, Newfangled; Sajag Patel, MD and principal creative, Breathe Branding in United Arab Emirates, Inese Silina of Nike Golf Global Brand Design and Marty Neumeier, director of Transformation, Liquid Agency and best-selling author of The Brand Gap and The Designful Company.

Emphasis was on executed strategy that made an emotional connection, and met the stated objectives and needs of the identified customers and prospects. Because jurors are unaware of the brand agency's names and sizes when reviewing the projects, small consulting firms had as much opportunity to be selected as did global organisations with exponentially greater budgets.

"The winning teams in this year's competition are not content to simply push unaligned messages out the door. They're banding together to fight for greatness," commented Neumeier.

High competition

Over 32 industries and 34 countries are represented among the 2011 winners. They ranged from Australian Diabetes Council to luxury car brand, Audi, US Mint, Brazil's Grupo Boticario, and Amrop, a Belgium-based global search firm. Some of the competing branding consultants included FutureBrand, Interbrand, MetaDesign, Siegel+Gale, in addition to in-house teams, small agencies, and representatives of multinational corporations and non-profits.