The Media Online’s weekly column delivering news of award wins, entries, competitions, dates to note and winners in the media industry.
Twelve new Women Voices Of 2022 recognised in new Quote This Woman+ awards
A queer consciousness blogger, a disabled writer/sex worker advocate, a rural climate activist who champions the needs of people living with disabilities, and a PhD candidate working to disrupt faith-based narratives around gender and sexualities: these are just some of the experts that Quote This Woman+ has recognised through its first Voices of the Year awards, aimed to recognise women+ who go the extra mile to ensure that the voices that are the most marginalised are given a chance to be amplified through media platforms.
Evidence from multiple sources shows that women’s voices are only a quarter of all those carried in South African media. Quote This Woman+ is a feminist media non-profit that curates a database of over 700 women experts, activists, thought-leaders and trail-blazers that journalists can access to interview and quote in order to increase the diversity of their sources. As well as women, this database includes experts who are marginalised for other reasons – like sexual orientation, or gender identity, or rural location, or poverty, or living with disability
Award contestants were drawn from current database members, as well as from new voices that journalists were starting to use who had not yet joined the database.
“We do not need to be given a voice, we have it already, we just need to use it no matter who is in the room or in the audience,” explains Phinah Kodisang, winner of the special Gender Based Violence expert category. Health category winner Rene Sparks adds, “I have been published [previously] but always felt like I am in my own little corner. The QW+ [Voices of the 2022] Awards allow my voice, and the voices of those I support, to be heard loudly across multiple platforms. Our collective voices are capable of an avalanche of transformation.”
The category winners are:
- Gender Based Violence: Phinah Kodisang, Soul City CEO and feminist health activist
- Environment: Thandile Chinyavanhu, an intersectional environmental activist highlighting the links between education, GBV and climate degradation in poor areas in South Africa on international platforms.
- STEM: Kolisa Sinyanya, an ocean scientist advocating for social injustice, curriculum change, and black women in STEM and geoscience,
- Politics & Law: Vayda Megannon, a ground-breaking advocate for SA’s Social Relief of Distress grant.
- Economics: Vusi Vokwana, a businesswoman with a unique insight into the needs and perspective of the Kasi economy
- Health: Rene Sparks, advocate for public health focusing on transgender needs and sustainable menstrual hygiene products, and podcaster
- Social Development & Communications: Dr Zakeera Docrat, SA’s first PhD graduate specialising in Forensic Linguistics and challenging the status quo of using only English in the South African legal system
- Disability I: Nosintu Kwepile, a polio survivor, is the Founder of Abanebhongo Persons with Disabilities in Nqamakwe, Eastern Cape. She is also a Climate Crisis activist and uses her NPO to create vegetable gardens for at-risk families in her community to sustain themselves. She also secured the drilling of a borehole for her community to ensure clean drinking water for everyone.
- Disability II Makgosi Letimile (Joint winners) a writer and a sex toy reviewer aimed at disabilities and pleasure. She has become synonymous with a reclaiming of sexuality for people of all abilities, orientations and backgrounds. She also advocates for disabled Motherhood and accessibility (physical, emotional and psychological) through language and space for Black women.
- LGBTQIA+ I: Dr Lwando is a PhD candidate in Sociology and the voice behind the popular blog Queer Consciousness. His effortless interchange between accessible content and deeply meaningful intervention has elevated his views on gender, social development, transformative constitutionalism and transformation to an audience beyond academia
- LGBTQIA+ II Tracey Sibisi (Joint Winner) is a PhD candidate and programme manager at Uthingo Network; as well as being the co-owner of ADIC (Alcohol and Drug Intervention Centre). She works with traditional and faith leaders and healers to disrupt ideologies and traditional perceptions of personhood, gender and sexuality and encourage complex identities for gay, gender-nonconforming, queer, trans and asexual people.
- Rural Women: Dr Lorato Mokwena is a Linguistics academic and founder of the “Dis ‘n Noord-Kaap Ding” colloquium. Her work in the Northern Cape has been nationally recognised and her ability to synthesize the expressions and practice of artists, academics, performers, community activists, traditional craftspeople and students to create a celebration of culture has led to a resurgence of pride and interest in her province. It has led to her term “extraordinary gaze” being adopted in describing how we view communities like hers.
Dr Zakeera Docrat, winner of the Social Development & Communications category, believes that the QW+ Voices of the Year Awards are important in amplifying marginalised voices on the male-dominated national stage and have motivated her by reflecting the value of her work; because too often people like her “contribute immensely to the growth of their discipline, often without equal recognition”.
#AdOfTheYear: South Africa’s best ads of 2022
The editorial team behind advertising and marketing news site MarkLives.com has announced its choices for Ad of the Year 2022, highlighting the best South African ads of 2022.
The #AdOfTheYear2022 campaigns showcased here successfully tap into the South African zeitgeist and capture the humour, humanity and ability of South Africans to rise above our circumstances.
SA’s Top 5 ads for 2022:
#1. MTN Springboks — 5G Your Life by TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris & Plank Films
#2. Distell’s The Legend of Chakalaka Norris — Savanna Chilled Chilli by Grey Africa/WPP Liquid & Plank Films
#3. AB inBev’s Corona Studios presents Free Surfer: Khanyisa Mngqibisa by Net#work BBDO & Bioscope Films
#4. Nando’s #BrightSides by Eclipse Communications & Together Films
#5. FNB’s Change needs you by Grid Worldwide & Darling Films
“Relevance and engagement are everything when it comes to advertising. Winning agencies in the future will be those who understand where humanity is at, and why culture and locality are critical to creating commercial work that engages,” said Charles Mathews, advertising columnist for MarkLives. “Commercial work today needs to achieve business goals, and make a difference with customers and the teams who work on these brands.
“The world is changing rapidly, and the adverts selected for 2022 showcase this. They understand their place in commerce and culture, and they get that advertising needs to do a whole lot more than just take up space. Commercials need to work harder than ever before, and the work often needs to change human behaviour. When we debated the best of the best, we looked for the difference makers — for the brands and creative teams who created real value for the brands they represented.”
You’d think now would be the time to blow our own horn. And you’d be right
Who doesn’t love having praise heaped on them for a job well done? We certainly do, says Spitfire’s Liesel Lategan.
“And it’s not just because we have some shiny new ornaments to decorate the office with (although they do look great). It’s confirmation that we’re doing the best work possible for our clients. And praise from our peers in the industry is high praise indeed.”
So we’d like to thank our incredible clients for giving us the opportunity to do such great work, and to thank their clients for allowing us all to shine. After all, it’s what we at Spitfire live to do.
Team Comedy Central Finalists
Digital Craft Writing X 3
– Liefde in die Pandemie
– Emazweni Magayeng
– Zero Nge’Nkhone
Brand Content Film
– Comedy Central EP
Promax Awards
Bronze: Social Media Campaign
Brand: DSTV
Agency: Ogilvy
Golds: Best Themed Campaign
Brand: Comedy Central
Agency: Paramount Africa
Best Use of Celeb Talent in Social
Brand: Comedy Central
Agency: Paramount Africa
Assegai Awards
Leader for Branded Content
Brand: Viceroy
Agency: Grey x Liquid
Nahana re-imagines transformation!
Recently at the annual Financial Mail AdFocus Awards, Nahana Communications Group was recognised with the Transformation Agency Award. The accolade acknowledges agencies in South Africa that have led the industry in diversity, equity and inclusion transformation efforts.
The Transformation Award is one that has the most meaning for Nahana Communications Group. “We are most grateful to have been recognised for Transformation, a pillar that truly serves to create diversity in equity. Whilst it isn’t at all easy, it is about a consistent desire to see people get equal opportunities and to represent the demographics of the country at all levels of our business,” said said Thabang Skwambane, group CEO of Nahana Communications Group. “We are so proud of the people we work with, those that have committed to transformation by being open to these changes. Nahana means “Imagine” or “think about it” in Sesotho, and it’s our staff that continuously do this to see the world as it should be and not as it is, to truly live it in our daily lives.”
The group has been known to rewrite the industry quota when it came to factors around equity, training and development of its people, extending further out to society as a whole. Diversity and Intentional Inclusion are the terms influencing the very fabric of its operations and are woven into its beliefs at Nahana.
Skwambane added, “Our focus now goes beyond transformation; we need to focus on women in our organisations as well as marginalised communities to ensure they have a voice and a seat at the table of opportunities.”
The group achieved its goal of 51% black-ownership in 2018, which now sits at 55% black ownership and 40% being female. Since then, Nahana Communications Group has gone to form a broad-based scheme, which together with The Maharishi Institute owns 10% of the business, wherein all the funds from dividends pay the tertiary education, a full four-year Business Administration Degree, for over 150 disadvantaged black women.
Learning and Development are at the heart of the transformation agenda at Nahana, with an investment of almost R10 million annually into various programmes and staff training. The group’s flagship graduate programme has been operational for over 25 years and employs between 20 – 35 graduates annually, providing a robust curriculum comprising of masterclasses, mentorship, and industry experience.
The group also grooms the next generation of industry leaders through a year long Nahana Leadership Incubator programme, designed to equip future leaders of the business with leadership skills and affording them coaching with a life coach, mentorship by one of the group executives and a GIBS Postgraduate course.
“We believe in the power of advertising through unique specialist marketing and communication skillsets that are the right fit for clients and the diversity that reflects our very diverse nation. This award isn’t another addition to fill up our famous award alley, it’s a reflection of our leadership, our people, and our belief systems that make up the very essence of our business,” concluded Skwambane.
