South African Corporate Communication Excellence Show-Case: 2022

The SA Publication Forum (SAPF) remains a relevant and crucial benchmarking forum for excellence in corporate communication.  This year’s corporate competition is yet again proof of the importance of building a community of practice.

This year’s overall best corporate publication astonished and wowed the judges and moderators. Your Career Guide, created for the University of Cape Town (UCT) by the Cape Town-based agency, GAPdesign, is bulging with incredibly useful and inspiring information and advice.

“Your Career Guide is fun, engaging, original and gets the message across to the student population of UCT”, said one of the judges. UCT’s Careers Service is instrumental in ensuring employment for the University’s graduates. A reality that many graduates face in South Africa. To this end, UCT publish their annual flagship publication, Your Career Guide, which offers crucial information and advice to students on planning and developing their careers. The students rely on this  not only for the exclusive job opportunities at the back, but also for the pages upon pages of content empowering them with career advice, the latest news from various industries and articles written by established professionals.

The best corporate publication is chosen from the pool of winners of all 9 categories in the Corporate Publication Competition of a specific year. These publications were scrutinised by a panel of moderators who, after much consideration, chose Your Career Guide as this year’s Best Corporate Publication from these finalists. “This was no easy task! The level of excellence and variety of publications certainly kept our moderators up at night. Fortunately the cream always floats to the top. We are proud of this year’s winner and all those excellent publications we saw this year,” said a spokesperson from the SAPF.

RUNNERS-UP

The two runners-up were both created by another Cape Town-based agency, Tip Africa. The first runner-up, Let’s Build a Bank, tells the history of Capitec – a journey from payday lender through the ‘bank-in-the-boot’ to the financial powerhouse of today. The story is fluidly and compellingly told. The investment in the many, many hours spent interviewing personnel and researching the history really comes through in the wealth of detail, biographical information, and anecdote.

The writing style is easy, warm, and personal, and often very funny. At times it is gripping – the desperate early days and potentially disastrous situations are nail-bitingly described. The descriptions of the way Covid-19 impacted and was handled should be the gold standard for any customer-focussed business. An all-round authentic brand experience and excellent communication on all levels.

Second runner-up, the online annual report of Mediclinic International, is a near-perfect annual report. By employing digital technology, the multi-layered medium of the internet is used to its fullest potential in this remarkable publication. By combining this with innovative design, difficult and dense content is dealt with in an effective manner. Colour, graphics, and good design make information clear, accessible and easy to understand. It conveys vast amounts of information in an easily digestible format.

The variety in industries, publications and methods of communicating is proof of the innovation and excellence that exist in the corporate communication industry in South Africa and the SAPF is humbled to be the vehicle for showcasing these examples.

It is our firm objective to grow a collaborative community of practice. Here we can show-case excellence, share success stories and offer input and feedback ensuring continuous feedback of improvement.

To view all the winners and categories, page through our results publication: https://sapublicationforum.co.za/

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