Insurer boosts small businesses through new partnership

These three innovative, home-grown enterprises are the latest batch of small businesses that will benefit from Hollard's advertising-sharing campaign to boost small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs). The insurer launched the second phase of its Big Ads for Small Business initiative last week.

Helping SMEs thrive

In 2021, 12 small businesses - from a Johannesburg inner-city tailoring outfit, an aunt-and-niece-run landscaping firm and a township chicken restaurant to a small Soweto laundromat venture and a one-woman wine-distribution start-up - reaped phenomenal results from their participation in the campaign, including securing myriad new contracts and partnerships, setting up new franchises, expanding their markets and creating many more jobs in their communities.

Each SMME received its own tailored media package, comprising anything from radio and television ads to billboard and digital advertising space, and the impact of the campaign was so big that Hollard wanted to expand it so more SMMEs could benefit.

Now, the insurer is building on last year’s success with a second six-month phase of the campaign in a slightly different format, adding three more small businesses to the pool in a novel partnership with DStv.

A partnership proposal to Hollard from the satellite service at the end of last year provided the perfect opportunity to run a competition across three of its television channels - Mzansi Magic, kykNET and M-Net, and social media, inviting SMMEs to apply to become part of the 2022 Big Ads for Small Business campaign.

Like last year, criteria for this year’s campaign included whether the small businesses would benefit from the campaign, could handle a potential rapid increase in business and were spread across the country.

Overall, 248 applications were received, which were narrowed down to 10 with the help of a specialist business consultancy, and then to the final three successful applicants that met all the criteria: Timeless Tomatoes, Ambani Africa and 123tutors.

From March to August 2022, Hollard will share two months of concurrent commercial airtime worth R1m with each of these enterprises on DStv channels and provide social media exposure on its channels.

About the three innovative small business

So, what gives the three successful contenders for 2022 an edge? All have great potential for growth and for changing lives for the better - creating better futures.

Timeless Tomatoes produces a range of top-quality tomato products from a small farm in Bethulie in the Free State. For small-business owner Anja Fourie, it’s a labour of love. She originally started Timeless Tomatoes as an additional income stream but has since grabbed the opportunity to have a real impact on her community, creating jobs and empowering local women.

Starting out as an idea to offer interactive mother-tongue education for learners, Ambani Africa uses an app with interactive animations, augmented reality and games to make learning eight South African languages fun and engaging. Founder and CEO Mukundi Lambani’s goal is to get more people learning and reading in their mother tongue, through technology in the online space.

123tutors was started to address the need for an affordable way to quickly and easily connect parents and primary-school, high-school and university students with vetted tutors, using clever technology to allow users to find the perfect tutor in three steps. Tutors themselves, co-founders Joseph Nyamariwata and Aaron Bornmann also aim to expand into other forms of tutoring, such as driving lessons, coding lessons and music lessons.