The South African Loyalty Awards celebrate excellence and innovation across the loyalty industry, recognising leading work and talent across CRM, consumer behavioural change, data insight and loyalty. This year, Varsity Vibe was commended in two key categories: Best Short-Term Marketing Campaign and Best Subscription Programme, with the recognition highlighting the impact of its approach to youth engagement, brand partnerships and loyalty.
Varsity Vibe was commended in the Best Short-Term Marketing Campaign category for its 2026 Campus Carnival, a nationwide campus activation, designed to bring the platform’s brand partnerships online partnerships into the ‘offline’, for students across South Africa to experience. Taking place across 15 campuses in seven provinces, Campus Carnival brought together 10 of South Africa’s most-loved brands, including Mr Price, Pick n Pay, Krispy Kreme and H&M.
The campaign created vibrant, gamified experiences designed around student participation, engagement and discovery, with more than R600,000 worth of prizes given away to students throughout the activation. Rather than simply promoting partner brands, Campus Carnival was designed to make the value of Varsity Vibe tangible, creating moments where students could actively engage with the brands they know and love while experiencing the benefits of being part of the Varsity Vibe community.
Varsity Vibe was also commended in the Best Subscription Programme category for its innovative subscription-based loyalty platform, which delivers value to both students and partner brands. By focusing on a highly influential audience at the beginning of their consumer journey, Varsity Vibe combines verified student membership, digital engagement and data-driven insights to create an ecosystem that supports meaningful, long-term relationships between consumers and brands.
Its omnichannel approach brings together digital experiences, exclusive offers, partnerships and physical on-campus engagements, creating a loyalty proposition that goes beyond traditional points and rewards.
For CEO Dino Talotti, being recognised alongside some of South Africa’s biggest loyalty programmes is particularly meaningful.
“It’s incredibly rewarding. We’re a small team competing alongside some of the biggest brands and loyalty programmes in South Africa, with audiences and resources many times our size. To be recognised alongside them in two categories tells me that great loyalty isn’t only about scale - it’s about relevance, innovation and creating real value. I’m especially proud of our team, because we’ve built Varsity Vibe from a student idea into a platform that is now being recognised amongst the very best in the industry.”The recognition extended beyond the campaigns and platform itself, with Dino Talotti, CEO, and Donna Mohamed, marketing manager, both identified as industry talent making an impact in South Africa’s loyalty industry.
For Mohamed, the opportunity lies in influencing consumer behaviour at a formative stage of the customer journey.
“We engage with consumers at a time when they’re just starting to have disposable income, which gives us an opportunity to influence how they discover, engage with and ultimately spend with brands. Because our audience is young, we have to stay relevant, agile and constantly evolving.Personally, I’ve learnt to be strategic rather than reactive - not every trend or opportunity is going to be right for every brand, but we need to be ready to move when there is genuine alignment. Ultimately, I want to help shape a more meaningful approach to loyalty: one that goes beyond transactions to create visibility, drive engagement and build long-term relationships between consumers and brands.”
For Talotti, the opportunity is on the brands side: changing how brands think about the value of young consumers.
“I’d like to help change the way brands think about loyalty - particularly with the youth of South Africa. Loyalty shouldn’t just be about points, discounts or transactions; it should be about earning trust early and creating genuine relationships that grow over time.If Varsity Vibe can help brands understand the value of investing in young people before they become their highest-spending customers, and help turn those early relationships into lifelong loyalty, that would be a legacy I’d be incredibly proud of.”
For Varsity Vibe, the opportunity is not simply to offer students better deals, but to create meaningful brand relationships at a point when consumers are forming habits, discovering new brands and developing their spending behaviours. From nationwide campus activations to a growing digital membership platform, Varsity Vibe continues to connect brands with one of South Africa’s most influential consumer audiences showing that when brands show up with relevance and value at the right time, loyalty follows.
