IAB South Africa 2024 Bookmarks Finalists' Showcase Encourages AI Use, Audacity And Creative Collaboration

On 15 August 2024, the IAB South Africa Bookmark Awards hosted its second Finalists’ Showcase, supported by Google, Nielsen and Rainmaker Media, ShopriteX, ahead of the awards ceremony celebrating South Africa’s digital media and marketing industry. 

Host and moderator Ann Nurock, Cannes Lions Trend Spotter for the Creative Circle, Ster Kinekor and Bizcommunity and Partner at Relationship Audits, presented the keynote presentation on trends at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Following Nurock’s presentation, the Showcase featured three panels exploring themes of fostering a culture of creativity, reintroducing audacity to advertising and the dynamic between AI and human ingenuity.

AI STILL A HOT TOPIC

Artificial intelligence (AI) was once more a major topic, despite the technology only being used in 2% of entries. “The message that resonated throughout Cannes was to be human as AI is only the technology and the enabler,” said Nurock to a room filled with industry creatives and students. 

Using Pedigree’s Adoptable and Michelob Ultra’s F1 campaigns as case studies, she further noted that Cannes Lions’ jurors maintained that human creativity was most important to work that utilised AI, along with humour and craft. In contrast to 95% of business leaders fearing using humour, brands with humorous ads results in 80% of people purchasing from those brands. The craft-led rejuvenation at Cannes saw illustration, stop motion and even embroidery, providing brands with the ability to tell stories and build stronger images as was the case with Spotify’s Spreadbeats campaign.

Bizcommunity Marketing & Media Editor Danette Breitenbach, Accenture Song Director Nimay Parekh and Brandon Govender, Digital & Integrated Executive Director at Joe Public, spoke to the theme of The Human Component: AI Needs Humans. The trio concurred that as AI does not have empathy, humans are needed to bring that insight of connecting with people to the work. All the panellists agreed that the introduction of AI to digital media and marketing is positive and that agencies, creatives and brands must learn to embrace it and use it to create better work.

BE AUDACIOUS

Can the industry dare to be different? This was the question posed to Ogilvy South Africa Creative Partner Alex Goldberg, Spotify Head of Marketing Sithabile (Star) Kachisa and Deshnie Govender, Head: Marketing Sub-Saharan Africa at TikTok. The answer was a resounding yes, with the panellists pointing to Vodacom, Castle Lite and KFC’s entries to this year’s Bookmarks as prime examples of brands (and agencies) daring to be different. “Don’t be afraid of breaking things,” said Goldberg. “The biggest part of audacity is initiative and you can’t be audacious if you’re scared of failure.”

Relationships and trust between agency and brand is also extremely important and, as Govender and Kachisa mentioned, taking time to grow that relationship allows for the creation of great work that has impact. 

ENABLE COLLABORATION THROUGH CONVERSATION

While agency tenure allows brands to create ideas that are beneficial for brands, the two women further noted the importance of bridging the gap between smaller, younger agencies and well-established agencies as well as between media agencies and creative agencies. This was further highlighted by SAB Vice President of Marketing Vaughan Croeser, Jellyfish Paid Search Director Lerato Modisakeng and Nkanyezi Masango, Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu Creative SSA. Croeser specifically spoke to how SAB and AB InBev achieves the best work from its agency partners. The company uses an in-house creative scale that allows them to have objective discussions with the creatives working on their brands. Creative work is also evaluated by an external panel and this open-source model enables the company to have good conversations and improve on processes.

Once again, the Bookmarks Finalists’ Showcase provided an opportunity for thought-provoking discussions around finalists’ case studies as well as local and global trends within the digital media and marketing space. 

The IAB South Africa Bookmark Awards is generously supported by naming rights partner Mark1, with further support from DStv Media Sales; South African Breweries (SAB); Google; Rainmaker Media, ShopriteX; Vodacom Media; Tractor Outdoor; and Accenture Song.

For more information on the Bookmark Awards 2024, visit thebookmarks.co.za.