EXCLUSIVE: South African Tourism awards account

by MarkLives (@marklives) The marketing and communications account for South African Tourism (SA Tourism) has been awarded to seven different agencies across mutiple disciplines, with each further subcontracting to a black-owned agency.

MetropolitanRepublic becomes the creative agency, Grey Advertising gets strategy and The Mediashop will handle media strategy, planning and buying. Digital will be serviced by Digitas Liquorice; and communications — split into brand and corporate PR — will be serviced by Vuma Reputation Management and FleishmanHillard respectively. The B2B component will be handled by Demographica.

Subcontracted to black-owned agencies

As per the tender requirements, each agency has subcontracted 30% of its scope and billing to a small black-owned business. Grey Advertising has appointed TrendER Insights, MetropolitanRepublic is teaming up with The Rudeboy Collective, The Mediashop with BlackMarket Media, Digitas Liquorice with BWD Advertising, Vuma with Darkstar Advertising, FleishmanHillard with Ethicore Consulting and Advisory Solutions, and Demographica with 1215KA Studio.

The appointment of new agencies follows a lengthy tender process initiated in April 2019 and again in late June 2019. Expiry of the existing contract was on 30 September 2019. The incumbent agency is FCB Joburg.

“Opportunity to re-ernergise”

“I could not be more delighted with these appointments,” says Themba Khumalo, who was appointed chief marketing officer at SA Tourism in September last year (his second stint there). “Twenty-five years into our democracy, amid the rapid shift and uptake of the digital and social media world, we have been given an opportunity to re-energise our tourism proposition to the world, increase awareness and consideration of SA in our global hubs, to shape the reputation of our country and to make sure we reach our target of 21m arrivals by 2030.”

The agencies will officially commence work on the SA Tourism account as soon as contracting is concluded in February 2020.