Four young women were awarded bursaries at last night’s MOST Awards, which celebrates media industry excellence, to continue their learning journey and upskilling.
The recipients were Fathima Bux (JCDecaux), Nyathela Mhlongo (Telmar), Phumi Masango (Carat) and Primrose Gumbi (MMAP).
Meta Media group MD, Kagiso Musi says the company decided to become involved in this initiative to “futureproof the industry”.
“Things are changing exponentially in the industry and what’s happening is that we are being left behind, and we’re starting to create silos again versus media people who are all rounded and well rounded. We almost need to move as fast as the changes are happening,” she elaborates.
The decision was made to award the bursaries to women only due to the gender gaps and pay gaps, which unfortunately still exist in today’s industry.
“To give the women a real and proper leg-up. If you look at the workforce of the marketing industry in its entirety, a large majority of it is made up of women. So why is it that we’re the workhorses but we don’t actually occupy spaces of influence,” questions Musi.
Important skills
Musi identifies skills in analytics as one of the most important skills that media practitioners will need to have in future. “Gone are the days of intuition. Gone are the days of cut and paste. Gone are the days of doing things because we’ve always done things like that. The new order actually calls for a lot more thinking and a lot more analysis of data, a lot more interrogation of things that are infront of us before making a decision,” she comments.
An amazing performance
Meta Media placed third in the Full Service Agency category, as well as third in the overall Media Agency of the Year rankings, a massive achievement for an agency which is less than a year old (eight months). Musi labels the team as knowledgeable, hungry, family-like, innovative and fun-loving, as characteristics of their success.
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