The ‘My South Africa’ advertising campaign on CNN International has won gold in the first annual Internationalist Awards for Innovative Digital Marketing Solutions.
The advertising campaign for South African Tourism was one of two global campaigns to win gold in a competition where the entries represented 24 countries. The campaign started in June 2008 and was CNN’s first ever user-generated content-driven advertising campaign, aiming to raise the profile of the South African brand to CNN’s audience of business and leisure travellers. The campaign is centred on a website,
www.mysouthafrica.tv, where users can upload and share their videos, stories and experiences of South Africa.
“We congratulate CNN International on this award, which re-affirms that South Africa’s current global campaign is not only connecting with consumers, but also showcases our ability to leverage online platforms with tailor-made campaigns that bring our diverse travel experience to life,” said SA Tourism's Roshene Singh.
The website was updated this year with new elements and features to complement three new television commercials. The new site includes a weather section tracking the weather in 50 South African cities and towns and RSS feed of news stories that link back to the SA Tourism website.
The 'My South Africa' commercials created by CNN are streamed on SA Tourism’s YouTube channel and are running on the Virgin Atlantic Airways in-flight entertainment centre. These commercials direct the audience to the website where they can participate in the campaign. According to CNN the partnership significantly expands the reach of the campaign and message to a global traveller audience.