The winning campaign, entitled KFC Journey of Hope, utilised adventurer Riaan Manser who cycled 4100 kilometres on half the calories needed for the trip as an awareness drive for hunger. The journey was documented and followed live. Along the dramatic journey, Riaan visited charities, inspiring children of Add Hope. The live documentary presented a string of complex media and logistic challenges.
Riaan was filmed for five days of every week, the footage was edited and telestreamed to eTV from remote locations on route, where the content was vetted, logs aligned and material prepared with a 24 hour turnaround. The same footage was condensed and simultaneously packaged for YouTube.
Radio interviews were followed by a throw forward, encouraging listeners to catch the latest televised documentary on eTV later that evening. The same footage was then made available online and promoted to the Facebook community, who were following him via a live GPS locator.
A total of 15.4 million people watched the journey unfold on television and 4.1 million listeners caught weekly radio interviews with Riaan. All in all R7 million worth of earned media was gained in addition to the R12 million worth of donations over 2012. This translated into 6 million meals (an increase of 33% over 2011).
The AMASA Gold winner, Gloo, created a compelling campaign for Brothers for Life, a South African NGO, to create awareness around the HIV pandemic in South Africa and to promote safe sex in order to prevent the spread of the disease. A simple, cost-effective, but innovative activation was created to dramatise the relaxed attitude towards unprotected sex; a growing trend amongst young South Africans putting them at risk of contracting HIV.
Gloo used the metaphor of people inserting memory sticks into their computers without considering the possibility of viruses and created a consignment of these branded with individuals' names. They were planted on World AIDS Day 2012 in public gathering places in and around Johannesburg. Once users had inserted the memory sticks into their computers, they were immediately confronted with an HIV-positive icon, which linked to videos about South Africans telling real stories about the reality of being HIV positive.
Each video ended with a strong call to action by Brothers for Life for users to take charge of their lives and to use a condom to prevent the spread of HIV. Innovatively, users were then encouraged to spread the word and not the virus, by leaving the memory stick in a public space for others to discover.
Key changes to this year's awards included taking the entry process online and secondly, aligning its categories to international media awards. Previously, the awards were entered into by media type and were a paper intensive procedure. Another new addition to the 2013 awards was the introduction of the Ignition awards, aimed at encouraging students to be innovative with their media planning and strategy.
Judges were Howard Fox (GIBS); Wayne Bishop (PHD), Cherylann Smith (Global Mouse), Gareth Grant (FNB), Richard Lord (The MediaShop) and Sheila McGillivray (One Lady & a Tribe). Frank Tilley, of Frank Tilley Consulting, kindly agreed to once again head the judging process.
To view the winning entry, visit http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-e5L8s2ryT54FoFG6jCdjg.
To view the AMASA Gold winner, visit http://www.glooniverse.co.za/rogergarlick/worldaidsday/.
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