After winning six New Generation Social & Digital Media Awards in 2014, Flow has been nominated for a whopping 10 awards this year. The awards will be held on Thursday 19 November 2015 in Johannesburg. Of course, we’ll be there in all our pink glory – and holding seriously big pink thumbs.
Now in their third year, the New Generation Awards recognise agencies and corporates for innovative and groundbreaking concepts and campaigns on digital and social media. The awards are a perfect fit for the work undertaken by Flow, since we pride ourselves on our creative, there-is-no-box thinking in every task we undertake.
The New Generation Awards, says the Awards’ website, “have gained in strength over the past few years, seeing a number of South Africa’s leading and much-loved brands receiving recognition for their various social and digital media campaigns”.
The six awards that Flow won last year – two gold and four silver – were for work we undertook for South African Tourism, Mandela Day (through the Nelson Mandela Foundation) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) South Africa. This year, Flow submitted 14 entries, 10 of which were shortlisted for five different clients:
- The Legacy Award: Gauteng Tourism Authority – Homo naledi
- Best Integrated Marketing Campaign: Hollard – Daredevil Run
- Most Viral Campaign: Nelson Mandela Foundation – Mandela Day
- Best Use of Technical Innovation: South African Tourism – Madiba’s Journey app
- Most Innovative App: South African Tourism – Madiba’s Journey app
- Best App Developed: South African Tourism – Madiba’s Journey app
- Best Community Engagement Award: South African Tourism – #MeetSouthAfrica
- Best Social Media Reach from an Event: Nelson Mandela Foundation – Mandela Day
- Digital Brand of the Year: South African Tourism
- Corporate Website: Table Mountain Aerial Cableway
Speaking of the nominations, Flow CEO Tara Turkington says, “It’s a huge affirmation that we’re doing good work to be shortlisted for 10 awards. It’s also really awesome that we’ve been nominated for work for so many different clients. It shows depth and quality of work, and that we are able to be creative across a variety of industries and across digital platforms. It’s a great honour to be shortlisted for so many awards.
“For ages, we never entered any awards,” she says. “We were more about the work that we do for our clients than blowing our own vuvuzela. But as we’ve grown, we’ve realised that our clients appreciate the recognition as well. We’ve therefore developed an awards policy that stipulates we will enter relevant awards, but that we will never do work for the sake of awards, and will not consider them when pitching or doing our work.
“We have also chosen to enter awards that recognise team effort, rather than individual excellence.”
Flow PR’s Karabo Sitto, who coordinated Flow’s submission to the 2015 New Generation Awards, says that the application process involved a systematic analysis of Flow’s best work against the award categories. “Once we culled our longlist, we sat down with the team that worked on the project we’d identified and ensured that we had all the details we needed to put together a compelling entry.
“Entering awards is important for our clients,” she says. “We never do work with awards in mind, but we know that these nominations show our clients how much we value the work that we do for them.”
