Sum of 21 is a full-service marketing and advertising incubator agency intended to address transformation within the creative industry through job creation, skills development and on-the-job training for the youth. The agency’s learnership programme aims to facilitate career development by applying hands-on learning models supported by seasoned industry mentors. This experience-based learning methodology leads to the development of employable resources that have been allowed to grow soft skills and develop their knowledge gained as graduates. At the end of the 12-month learnership programme, the young professionals receive an accredited national certificate in advertising (NQF 5).
Innovative B-BBEE solutions to help transformation and job creation
Using an innovative incubation model that focuses on the transformation of learners into career-ready graduates, Sum of 21 has developed opportunities based on the latest B-BBEE codes that can help companies with their transformation objectives. A company’s empowerment and transformation B-BBEE grants can be tapped into, including skills development grants through learnerships and bursaries, enterprise and development grants and socio-economic development grants.
“Transformation goes beyond just watching the scorecard and paying the pennies forward. There must be some emotional investment and time spent with learners to help them grow into employable youth and not focus on learnerships that perpetuate professional learners,” says Roxanne Da Mata Goncalves, director at Strata-g Labour Solutions. “It is easy to throw money at the issue, but what money does not provide is long-term employment – which means individuals do not get sufficient exposure and business acumen to actually create a decent working quality individual.”
By utilising corporate’s B-BBEE grants, Sum of 21 allows young professionals to work on real-life projects, giving them access to real-world work experience. This approach provides the grantor with added value, where Sum of 21 will give the grantor free creative hours, which can then be used to execute creative briefs. In exchange for the creative hours, the grantor has access to services ranging from strategic brand positioning through to creative execution and implementation, including the development of communication or marketing collateral and social media campaigns without the grantor having to put more pressure on their current marketing budgets.
To ensure the learners deliver quality work, they work alongside discipline experts at Sum of 21, learning the skills they need to advance seamlessly into career roles. Added to this, the interns bring substantial value to the client, providing fresh, innovative ideas and vision, sparking inspiration and motivation, improving current processes and surpassing goals.
Introducing The Small Business Booster Programme
Classic1027, in partnership with Sum of 21, is excited to introduce The Small Business Booster Programme. This innovative programme focuses on raising funds through enterprise and supplier development grants and channelling said funds towards brand and marketing campaigns to support SMMEs, many of which have been negatively affected, directly or indirectly, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Janhendrik Oosthuizen, chief vision officer of Sum of 21, explains: “The success of SMMEs in South Africa is critical, giving the high levels of unemployment in our country. SMMEs don’t have the means to tell their story as they don’t have the budget or resources. Sum of 21 is ideally positioned to help the SMMEs by giving them access to marketing services that are, more often than not, outside their reach from a financial perspective.”
Classic1027 calls upon corporate South Africa to become part of this innovative initiative by using their B-BBEE grant contributions to empower an SMME to become part of The Small Business Booster Programme. For every R300,000 raised through grants secured by the programme, an SMME will get access to professional brand, marketing and advertising services provided by Sum of 21, as well as a fully-fledged radio campaign on Classic 1027. This includes a complete media plan consisting of the production of a professional radio advertisement, airtime for the advertising spots and live reads and an interview with Michael Avery on the Classic Business Show to market their business.
Creating value for your organisation while contributing towards transformation
Besides the full B-BBEE recognition for the enterprise and supplier development grant spent on the programme, corporate grantors will be offered the opportunity to identify SMMEs from within their supplier networks and existing platforms to benefit from The Small Business Booster Programme. In addition, grantors will be afforded an interview with Michael Avery on the Classic Business Show to showcase their company from an enterprise and supplier development perspective.
“The crisis of youth unemployment in South Africa is clear and a present danger unless we all start bringing our piece of the puzzle to solve it. That’s why I’m looking forward to this exciting partnership that Classic 1027 has entered into with Sum of 21 to not only help improve the quality of training and mentorship for young creatives but also provide critical marketing and advertising support to small businesses who need it most during the pandemic. What sets this project apart is its relentless focus on outputs and impact,” concludes Michael Avery from Classic 1027’s Classic Business Show.
For more information about the Small Business Booster Programme, visit http://www.classic1027.co.za/small-business-booster or email az.oc.7201cissalc@retsoobssenisubllams and we will get in contact with you.
*Statistics South Africa (STATS SA) 2020 Q4 Quarterly Labour Force Survey
