An innovative public relations campaign for South Africa’s first dance film Hear Me Move has won a 25-member student team of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) a prestigious international award.
The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) recognised the efforts of the University’s students with one of most sought after awards in the public relations industry, the Golden World Award, earlier in July 2016.
In April 2016, the campaign was acknowledged, by the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa, with a Gold and Silver Award in the South African Public Relations Campaign of the Year category.
The students rose to the challenge of a Johannesburg based Film and Television Production house who teamed up with Ms Janine Lloyd from PR Expert to build an interactive and engaging public relations campaign to promote the release of Hear Me Move.
The public relations campaign involved a 360 degree approach to create awareness. These included publicity, dance flash mobs; social media engagement and giveaways; a digital influencer campaign; cinema activations; streetlamp billboards and brand affiliated dance themed get-togethers.
Ms Lloyd pointed out that the standard with which the students executed the selected strategies is testament of the high level of learning and teaching offered by the University. “This is encouraging for our industry and I am very proud of the UJ students who worked determinedly with my team to make this an award-winning campaign!” said Ms Lloyd.
“Developing a culture of representation at competitions is important to UJ’s Faculty of Humanities. The students should be extremely proud of themselves to receive acknowledgement in such a prestigious and challenging competition. Our students’ performance was exceptional as the level of competition was incredibly high. Our team competed against teams representing top public relations agencies,” says Mrs Rene Benecke, Lecturer in the Department of Strategic Communication, UJ.
Ms Benecke concludes: “The campaign provided the students to get recognition for their work and also provided an opportunity for them to build a dynamic network in the public relations industry as they embark on their career.
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