Women for Change and Edelman South Africa took the top honour at the 2026 Effie Awards South Africa, winning the Grand Effie for their campaign, The Unburied Casket, in the Non-Profit category.
Announced at a ceremony at The Venue, Melrose Arch, on 20 October, the awards recognised marketing effectiveness across 45 finalists, with 27 trophies presented: one Grand Effie, four Gold, 10 Silver and 12 Bronze.
The programme, hosted by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), also introduced two new honours. Women for Change was named Marketer of the Year, while Joe Public received Agency of the Year.
The new titles recognise consistent performance across a body of effective work and are determined by points earned by finalists and winners, using the Effie Index methodology.
Gillian Rightford, ACA executive director for Effie South Africa, said this year’s winning campaigns demonstrated the value of combining a clear understanding of a challenge with creativity and rigorous measurement.
“The work shows how effective marketing can build businesses, shift behaviour and make a meaningful contribution to society,” she said, congratulating the agency and client teams behind the winning campaigns.
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New leadership for 2027
Effie South Africa also announced changes to its leadership ahead of the 2027 programme.
Refilwe Maluleke, executive head of marketing at Discovery Health, will become committee chair, succeeding Anwar Jappie, whose tenure concludes with the 2026 programme. Neo Makhele, chief strategy officer at Ogilvy South Africa, takes over as deputy chair.
Fran Luckin, co-chief creative officer at Boundless, and Mandisa Theko-Khitsane, marketing executive at Sanlam Retail Mass, will serve as jury co-chairs.
Rightford thanked Jappie for his leadership and acknowledged Maluleke and Ahmed Tilly for their work and oversight as jury co-chairs over the past three years.
She said the incoming leadership team would build on the programme’s achievements while maintaining the professionalism and rigour of the judging process.
2026 Effie Awards Winners Table
| AWARD | AGENCY | CLIENT | BRAND | CAMPAIGN | CATEGORY |
| Grand | Edelman South Africa | Women For Change | Women For Change | The Unburied Casket | Non-Profit |
| Gold | Edelman South Africa | Women For Change | Women For Change | The Unburied Casket | Social Good – Brands / Positive Change |
| Gold | Clockwork | The Salvation Army | The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre | Escape It | Non-Profit |
| Gold | Joe Public | Uber Eats South Africa | Uber Eats | Own the Hours Others Abandoned | Delivery Services |
| Gold | Edelman South Africa | Women For Change | Women For Change | The Unburied Casket | Non-Profit |
| Silver | McCann Joburg | SA Heart Association | SA Heart® (South African Heart Association) | Check My Beat: Heart Health Tracks | Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services |
| Silver | Joe Public | Uber Eats South Africa | Uber Eats | Own the Hours Others Abandoned | Marketing Disruptors |
| Silver | KAMuses Consultancy | KFC South Africa | KFC Africa | Add Hope The Biggest Hunger Hack | Social Good – Brands / Positive Change |
| Silver | Clockwork | The Salvation Army | The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre | Escape It | Social Good – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion |
| Silver | Joe Public | Chicken Licken | Chicken Licken | Nothing to Bite Into. Everything to Talk About. | Restaurants |
| Silver | Joe Public | SAB (AB InBev) | Castle Milk Stout | The Revealing Pour: A print ad that went beyond ink and paper. | Media Innovation – Emerging & New Channels, Existing Channels / Media Effies |
| Silver | Ogilvy | KFC South Africa | KFC South Africa | Obsessively Building KFC’s Taste Platform to Unlock a New Generation of Fanatics | Sustained Success – Products, Services |
| Silver | Ogilvy and Ogilvy Singapore | Unilever South Africa | Vaseline PJ | How Vaseline Rewrote the Rules of Trust in the Social Era | Marketing Disruptors |
| Silver | Ogilvy | Volkswagen Group, South Africa | Volkswagen South Africa | Forever Golf – How VW Turned a 47‑Year Nickname Tradition into a Record‑Breaking Golf 8 Launch. | Engaged Community |
| Silver | Ogilvy | Audi South Africa | Audi | TikTok Test Drive: How Audi turned TikTok’s scroll into a steering wheel | Social Media |
| Bronze | KAMuses Consultancy | KFC South Africa | KFC Africa | Add Hope The Biggest Hunger Hack | Corporate Reputation |
| Bronze | Clockwork | The Salvation Army | The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre | Escape It | Media Idea / Media Effies |
| Bronze | Clockwork | The Salvation Army | The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre | Escape It | Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services |
| Bronze | Joe Public | SAB (AB InBev) | Castle Milk Stout | The Revealing Pour: A print ad that went beyond ink and paper. | Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services |
| Bronze | Joe Public | Takealot | Takealot | Takealot: the marketing case for hyperlocal marketing | Multicultural – Products, Services |
| Bronze | Ogilvy | What Happens When Search Never Leaves The Gen Z Feed? | Youth Marketing | ||
| Bronze | Joe Public | SAB (AB InBev) | Flying Fish | Out Of Your Home: How We Made Flying Fish impossible to ignore | Media Innovation – Emerging & New Channels, Existing Channels / Media Effies |
| Bronze | Ogilvy | YUM Brands | KFC South Africa | When Everyone Went Cheap, KFC Went Bottomless | Seasonal Marketing – Products, Services |
| Bronze | Promise Group | SAB (AB InBev) | Castle Lite | The Draught Story | Sustained Success – Products, Services |
| Bronze | Boundless | South African Breweries | South African Breweries | Forever Committed | Corporate Reputation |
| Bronze | Ogilvy | Volkswagen Group, South Africa | Volkswagen South Africa | Forever Golf – How VW Turned a 47‑Year Nickname Tradition into a Record‑Breaking Golf 8 Launch. | Brand Content & Entertainment |
| Bronze | Ogilvy | SAB (AB InBev) | Carling Black Label | Carling Black Label – Be The Champion Coach: reimagined as the highest-stakes fan mechanic in SA football | Engaged Community |
