It wasn’t 67 minutes, but 270 industry hours that Red & Yellow School staff, students and alumni, who joined forces with the ad industry on Mandela Day (18 July), gave to charities, small businesses and NGOs. The aim was to give these organisations marketing and advertising support.
“At Red & Yellow, we are determined to use our industry knowledge and connections to empower local NGOs and to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds,” says Kira Koopman, who organised the event along with the Outreach team at Red & Yellow.
“Good marketing is critical to the success of any organisation that needs to raise funds from the public, yet so many NGOs and charities do not have the budget or dedicated skills for marketing. Our idea was to give them an opportunity to work with some of the best in the industry on their immediate marketing and communications priorities,” Koopman said.
And so the “one-day creative hustle at Red & Yellow’s Cape Town school” was born. The teams gave organisations consulting hours with some of the local advertising and communications sector’s top marketers, art directors, and graphic designers. The experts and students worked with the beneficiaries on a range of projects, from designing logos and drawing up social media plans to crafting bespoke marketing communications strategies.
Volunteers from agency giants such as Quirk, JWT, Nomads, The Creative Group and Kaffeine all spent their Saturday at the Red & Yellow campus to give something back to the community. Red & Yellow had hoped to provide 67 industry hours to the beneficiaries – that target was smashed with more than 60 volunteers donating 270 hours of their time on the day.
Red & Yellow’s Professional Development content team also presented a workshop to help those without marketing budgets or backgrounds to understand how to implement marketing strategies and use marketing tools without needing to hire expensive advertising agencies.
Practical prizes for selected winners
Melina Lewis, director at Tankwa Sky, walked away with a spot on one of Red & Yellow’s online courses, while Ari’s Cancer Foundation won a website starter kit plus hosting for a year, valued at over R8 000, sponsored by the Yellow Door Collective. Says Josh Jansen, representing Ari’s Cancer Foundation, “This is exactly what we’ve needed and it has come at exactly the right time for us.”
Origin, Sir Juice, Eat Out the Box, RedBull, Ecco Café, Simba PepsiCo and Devil’s Peak Brewery donated food and beverages to keep volunteers and representatives from NGOs and SMEs energised.
“When you have a dream, that’s all it is until you put it down on paper. The biggest motivation is when people appreciate your dreams and see the visions you have,” says Monalisa Ntshele, founder at CapeRise Entertainment. “We see a future and our ambitions have been resuscitated, thanks to this event.”
What’s next?
Red & Yellow is committed to helping nurture a marketing, advertising and communications sector that is inclusive and has a positive impact on society. Its Red & Yellow Springboard Marketing Institute is South Africa’s only advertising learnership programme.
The Red & Yellow School launched the Institute in 2014 to give young people an opportunity to achieve a fully funded National Certificate in Advertising. This programme has already given close on 100 students with no access to tertiary education an opportunity to enter the world of marketing.
The school hopes to repeat its Mandela Day initiative and expand it to the new Johannesburg campus next year. In the interim, it will support the charities, NGOs and SMEs present at this year’s creative hustle with follow-up workshops and feedback sessions to help them integrate their marketing campaigns and ideas into their businesses.
Red & Yellow’s new school in Johannesburg will play a central role in Red & Yellow’s plan to train 100 000 students from across Africa by 2020 and to cement its position as the country’s most forward-thinking and industry-relevant marketing and advertising school.
Red & Yellow’s world-class Johannesburg facility is located at National Bank House at 84 Albertina Sisulu Street, right in the heart of the central business district. The historic site is owned by Urban Ocean, a contemporary property developer enriching South Africa’s cities by re-inventing the culture of true inner city living and working. The campus is headed by Lyndi Lawson-Smith, formerly a co-founder of Quirk Education.
Red & Yellow took a conscious decision to place its school in the CBD in support of inner city revival and to ensure that it’s representative of and accessible to Johannesburg’s people, she adds.
The school hopes to help attract the creative industry back in Johannesburg central and is making a bold statement about its position as a truly world-class, Africa-focused school in a cosmopolitan city. Situated on a major transport route, the campus immerses students in a vibrant and fast-paced urban environment where they will be equipped to work in today’s creative economy.
“For 20 years, Red & Yellow has produced graduates who are game-changers in their disciplines and industries,” says Lawson-Smith. “Our goal is to produce even more such exceptional talent, without losing the qualities that make the school special. As always, we’ll be a school of logic and magic – a place where business acumen and creativity are harnessed to deliver great outcomes for students and their employers.”
