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25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa wins 2020 PRISM Award

In celebration of 25 years of South African democracy, Anglo American partnered with City Press and ByDesign Communications to create “25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa”, a multiplatform, content driven editorial campaign. The long-awaited PRISM awards, Africa’s most sought-after awards in the public relations and communications industry, took place on the 15th May in a short online segment. We are happy to announce that “25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa” won a Bronze PRISM award in the Publications category.

Aimed at multiple audiences ranging from market investors and businesspeople, politically savvy decision-makers, engaged communities and citizens, as well as internal stakeholders, the campaign set out to increase awareness about Anglo American’s significant and multifaceted contribution to the country’s economy. Committed to a R72 billion investment over the next five years, the initiatives span their innovative FutureSmart mining technology, community interventions in areas such as education, healthcare, entrepreneurship as well as responses to environmental concerns and social injustices.

Reporting good news to South Africans, usually overwhelmed by negative stories, provided a clear opportunity to create an atmosphere of belief and optimism in the economic and social future of the company.

The content was carefully planned and crafted using industry experts and seasoned reporters to create accurate quality journalism. Community and stakeholder interviews and collaborations ensured authenticity and a balanced share of voice for all stakeholders. Supporting and enhancing the stories were graphics, animation and video content. Meticulous attention to design and editing ensured that the content would appeal to a broad audience.

The campaign was launched in print, supported in social media, before going online. From there, it was packaged and delivered across multiple platforms to a wider engaged audience.

For the launch, the City Press Sunday edition carried a 58-page glossy magazine; with additional copies provided to Anglo American for distribution internally and to stakeholders. The City Press online audience could access all feature articles plus “The Road Ahead” leadership interview on a dedicated “special report” page, whilst a digital version of the magazine was also available. For the next 25 working days the City Press morning
e-newsletter featured one of the reasons to believe articles, giving readers an optimistic start to the day.

To extend the audience, the Daily Sun website included a meta-tag and a campaign tag linking to “25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa” for each day of the campaign. In addition, eight promotional e-newsletters, focusing on the selected editorial pillars and “The Road Ahead “leadership interviews, were delivered to the online data base creating an audience segment of 767 000 readers.

One reader’s reaction perfectly articulated the success of the campaign, when he stated, “I have started checking my email before I start work, it gives me hope and encouragement.” Scale was achieved with 1.4 million City Press readers being supplemented by 767 784 targeted individuals in the Media24 network. Online views exceeded the target by 40%. Engagement measures were also impressive: the average open rate for all newsletters was 54% rising to 77.8% for the highest. The average time spent on stories was 3 minutes 10 seconds, rising to 4 minutes and 39 seconds for the longest time. The CTR for best performing posts were 3.04% on Facebook and 2.94% on Twitter.

The campaign serves as an inspiring case study reflecting the effective use of Content marketing across multiple touch points.