Razor leads Africa Sabre Awards with five wins
South African firm Razor, owned by M&C Saatchi Group leads with five trophies, including a Diamond Sabre Award for Superior Achievement in Reputation Management (Grand Prix) for its 'Reputation in the can' campaign for Tiger Brands Limited, and three certificates of excellence. The agency is also on the Platinum Sabre shortlist.
Razor finished ahead of multinational agencies, BCW and Edelman, and the African operations of UK corporate and financial specialist, Instinctif Partners.
There are two trophies each for pan-African consultancy APO Group (which has its African offices in Senegal); Gong communications, a UK firm with an office in Kenya; Portland, a UK firm with South African operations; Redhouse Group of Kenya; Retroviral of South Africa; and US-based international agency WE Communications.
Local agencies that also won an award include Breinstorm Architects, KAMuses, Think Creative, Clockwork, MSL, and Magna Carte Reputation Management.
High quality content
“We have never had so many entries from Africa and we have never celebrated so many different winners," says Paul Holmes, chair of the Sabre jury.
“It is fair to say that we have never seen so much good work from so many firms, including international agencies with growing African operations, and indigenous firms from multiple markets.
“What we have seen over the past few years in Africa is the investment of large multinationals in the continent, but also a wave of African entrepreneurship that has seen local firms across the continent producing high-quality creative and driving impressive media coverage and social engagement for their clients," he adds.
Platinum Sabre Award
Five campaigns have been shortlisted for the Platinum Sabre, which recognises the best campaign of the year:
- #ItsUpToUS - Mastercard Foundation with Engage BCW Kenya
- #RewriteOurProverbs to #WriteOffGBV - Green Door with Clockwork
- Driving a positive reputational shift and steadily guiding a change in perception - Omnia Holdings with Instinctif Partners Africa
- Every Stage of Women - MSI Reproductive Choices and Marie Stopes Ghana with Portland Communications
- Reputation in the can - Tiger Brands Limited with Razor (M&C Saatchi Group SA)
The winner will be announced at the African Sabre Awards on Wednesday, 25 May, as part of the African Public Relations Association’s annual conference in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
Delivering business results
“When we launched Razor we made a commitment to be a better place for our people and a better place for our clients. For us this meant our own focus on culture and for our clients around work that simply works better,” says Dustin Chick, partner & MD, Razor.
“The fact that so many of our clients have performed so well in this year’s show is testimony to PR that is delivering real business results. It is about our people, and it is about a real partnership with our clients,” he adds.
Sabre Awards EMEA shortlist
Razor has six nominations in the EMEA Sabre Awards shortlist that has just has been announced.
Keeping Razor company are agency Cirkle, Spanish firm LLYC, and Omnicom PR Group, also with six nominations each. International network Team Lewis, public affairs firm Hanover, UK creative shop The Romans, and CEE network Uniomedia Communications each have five nominations.
Ketchum and W Communications each have nine nominations and Trigger Oslo, seven.
In this year's competition over 400 campaigns were selected from among more than 2,000 entries.
The 18th annual EMEA Sabre Awards will take place at The Guildhall in London on 27 May. The Innovation Sabre Awards winners will be presented during the PRovokeEMEA Summit in the afternoon of the same day at The Ham Yard Hotel in London.
See all the Africa Sabre Awards 2022 winners here
See the EMEA Sabre Awards 2022 shortlist here