The Media Online’s weekly column delivering news of award wins, entries, competitions, dates to note and winners in the media industry.
Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Awards relaunch with SANEF
The Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Awards have found a new home at the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and will take place this year on 25 June 2022 at a live event at Melrose Arch. Entries have opened.
“SANEF is excited to host the awards in June and we are confident more journalists will enter their excellent work as they have done in previous years,” said chairman, Sbu Ngalwa. Ngalwa said the Awards were a natural fit for SANEF. “The Awards are a key highlight when it comes to awarding excellent journalistic work, which is something wholly supported by SANEF.” Long-time sponsor of the Awards, Standard Bank, will be taking up the sponsorship again this year.
Standard Bank CEO, Lungisa Fuzile, said: “In a world that is more connected than ever before, access to reliable, sourced, accurate and verified information has become even more important today. “We have seen the destructive impact of fake news locally and globally and the division and confusion that it sows.”
“The role of our media professionals is now more important than ever. But they too are facing their own challenges as the global nature of information and the Internet upends their traditional business models,” said Fuzile. “Its support of our diligent and professional media through initiatives like the Standard Bank Sikuvile Awards, where we celebrate and nurture those who guard free speech, share and interpret conflicting ideas and provide us with the clearest picture of where it is we want to be as a society,” he continues. “We are thankful to Standard Bank for entrusting us with this huge task,” says Ngalwa.
The theme this year is innovation.
The awards are open to all print, online/digital, broadcast (radio and TV) journalists. The categories are:
- Hard news
- NEW: Indigenous language reporting in community media
- NEW: Community service reporting
- Investigative journalism
- Columns/editorial
- Visual journalism (editorial cartoons/graphic layout)
- Features
- Popular journalism
- News photographs
- Feature photographs
- Sports photographs
- Lifestyle
The awards for Rising Star of the Year and Journalist of the Year are selected from the entries in the categories by the jury.
Also awarded by the jury is the Allan Kirkland Soga: Achievement Award which recognises a sustained and extraordinary contribution to newspaper journalism on the part of an individual and the winner will have demonstrated impeccable ethics and craft excellence.
Please find the entry kit here.
TBWA tops world’s most innovative and creative lists for 2022
It’s been a month of wins for TBWA\SA. Just days after being named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (MIC) for 2022, ranking No.1 in the Advertising sector, TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris has also again been named No.1 Agency in SA and TBWA\SA South Africa’s No.1 Group for 2021 by The Creative Circle.
In addition to this, Ad Age international has just recognised TBWA\ as 2022 Network of the Year.
“It’s a tremendous honour to be recognised as one of the most innovative companies in the world, and at home in South Africa, yet again. It’s challenging enough to simply set your sights on winning and being recognised in any of these awards, but to hold onto a leadership position for four years is an extraordinary achievement. And if it weren’t for the passion and creativity of our people, we would not be recognised at all”, said Luca Gallarelli, CEO, TBWA\South Africa.
“Globally, these wins put us on par with the likes of Canva, Roblox and SpaceX. It’s a position we intend to hold, and we defend and define this position every day through consistently innovating, selling great thinking, and prioritising excellence in creativity in all we do”.
The TBWA\ Group’s move beyond advertising is key to fuelling these successes, and the work speaks for itself. Some of the most notable projects include:
- Juniper Park\TBWA’s Signal for Help, a hand gesture created for the Canadian Women’s Foundation that serves as a distress signal for domestic violence. The signal helped to save an abducted teenager’s life after she used it to alert a driver that she needed assistance after learning it on TikTok, where it had been shared millions of times.
- TBWA\Media Arts Lab’s Hollywood in Your Pocket, which enlisted Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow to introduce iPhone 13 Pro’s new cinematic mode by shooting five different genre scenes (romance, war, gangster, space thriller, and Western) in a campaign that extended into an interactive digital experience.
- TBWA sibling agency Lucky Generals created one of the best ads of the 2021 Super Bowl to show off Amazon’s new Alexa, putting the virtual assistant in giving her the only body that could possibly compare – Michael B. Jordan’s – on the world’s biggest media stage
- TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris South Africa’s Shwii by Nissan which demonstrates how Shwii by Nissan uses descriptive language to help users navigate through South Africa’s local roads on Waze. Voice commands are available in isiZulu and local SA slang, and downloadable via a link or QR code that lets South African’s navigate the road in a mother tongue.
Everlytic gains more accolades for its leadership in multichannel messaging
Everlytic, which offers smart digital messaging software for meaningful business relationships, has been selected a runner-up for the Technology Company of the Year Awards for 2021 at Africa Tech Week. This helps further demonstrate why the company is the most chosen enterprise email provider in the South African market.
“Everlytic has transitioned from its initial focus on bulk email and SMS into offering a multi-channel platform that offers globally competitive automation functionality. We have found the balance between cost-effectiveness, richness of features, ease of use, multi-channel capabilities, best-in-market delivery rates and superior support. This has helped the company to show revenue growth of 30% year-on-year over the past two years, while we have also grown our workforce by over 30 members,” said JD Engelbrecht, MD at Everlytic.
Engelbrecht added that Everlytic offers the best-in-market blended message delivery rates that outperform those of both local and international competitors. This rate includes all types of message traffic, and not just transactional messages like OTPs where a high rate is expected. The company is now one of South Africa’s largest bandwidth consumers, processing 4.5TB per day, and sent out 6.6 billion emails in 2021, up from 5.5 billion the previous year.
Separately, Englebrecht was listed among ‘The 10 Best Performing Technology Leaders of 2021’ by Insight Success Magazine. Insights Success provides a platform to all C-level professionals, managers and HR practitioners of organisations, to flaunt their innovative style of conducting business and the way of delivering effective and collaborative solutions to strengthen the market share.
Winners of the Netflix and Unesco African Folktales Reimagined competition revealed
After launching a groundbreaking competition to find some of Sub-Saharan Africa’s up and coming filmmakers, entitled ‘African Folktales, Reimagined’ Netflix and Unesco have announced the six winners. Each winner will receive $25,000 plus a production budget of $75,000 to create short films through a local production company and under the guidance of Netflix-appointed supervising producer and industry mentors from across the continent. Staying true to the competition’s aim of showcasing Africa’s rich cultural heritage, the short films will feature reimagined African folktales presented in multiple African languages.
The winners are:
Name | Country | Mentor | Film Title | Language |
Gcobisa Yako | South Africa | Bongiwe Selane | Uma Mlambo | Xhosa |
Korede Azeez | Nigeria | Jenna Bass | Adieu Salut | Hausa & Fulfulde (Fula) |
Loukman Ali | Uganda | Pape Boye | Katera of the Punishment Island | English & Runyankole |
Mohamed Echkouna | Mauritania | Femi Odugbemi | The Enmity Djinn | Hassaniya Arabic & French |
Voline Ogutu | Kenya | Leila Afua Djansi | Anyango and the Ogre | English, KiSwahili & Luo |
Walter Mzengi | Tanzania | Tosh Gitonga | Katope | KiSwahili & ciGogo |
*More details about each film title will be shared at a later stage
The final six filmmakers – you can watch them here – will now go into the development phase of their projects, before starting production on the short films that will eventually premiere on Netflix as part of ‘An Anthology of African Folktales’ later this year.
Ben Amadasun, Netflix Director of Content in Africa, said, “It’s been a truly inspiring journey for us to experience the level of creative talent from our candidates. From the thousands of applicants we’ve received to the Top 21 and finally, the 6 winners – it’s evident that Africa is filled with amazing storytelling talent that is ready to share their different perspectives and celebrate Africa’s rich culture and heritage. Congratulations to the winners – and to emerging filmmakers who didn’t make it – we urge you to continue your passion of telling African stories. The world is ready to experience your talent and we at Netflix, will continue to be your biggest cheerleaders in this journey.”
Nedbank achieves top scores in the 2021 Consulta South African Customer Satisfaction Index for Banking
Nedbank once again scored highly, improving on their 2020 scores in the 2021 South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) for Banking.
The index, compiled by Consulta, demonstrates Nedbank’s consistent improvement over a period of five years on most of the measured outcomes. This suggests a deliberate effort to place the client at the centre of everything they do. Nedbank’s focus on improving the client experience over time indicates a purposeful approach in creating sustainable change.
Nedbank is in a leadership position on the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures a person’s likelihood of recommending a brand to family and friends. Nedbank’s NPS score of 46,7 points was well above the industry average score of 36. According to SA-csi, Nedbank is the only bank that has shown consistency and marked growth year-on-year in the NPS measure over a period of five years.
While client expectations continue to rise year-on-year, so has Nedbank’s ability to keep their clients satisfied. Nedbank has also taken another leadership position with a score of 81,9 in the overall customer-satisfaction score, also above the industry average score of 79,7.
According to Consulta, Nedbank has shown consistent improvement in getting its positioning, pricing, messaging, client-facing and online channels right.
Nedbank’s clients are loyal to their bank. The bank has taken another leading position with their score of 73,9, while the industry average score is 71,9. This is just another example of Nedbank delivering the most consistent improvement in loyalty scores over a five-year period.
“The SA-csi rankings are an important barometer to measure our performance as it relates to how our clients feel about banking with us. We will continue to deliver leading Client Experience and aspire to reach #1 in NPS,” said Anton De Wet, Nedbank RBB’s Chief Client Officer.