Client: Business Partners Limited, Entrepreneur of the Year® 2024
Period: 15 May to 15 November 2024
Approach: Media relations, thought leadership, social media, media events
The Challenge
Entrepreneur of the Year has run since 1988, backed by a financier that has put more than R25 billion into South African businesses across 73,000 transactions. It is the most credentialled competition of its kind in the country — none of which counts for much in a newsroom where the business desk has spent three years writing about founders in their twenties.
By 2024, South African business media had a startup problem. Hustle culture had taken most of the available oxygen, and an awards programme built for owners with turnovers from under R10 million to over R50 million was competing against a narrative aimed at people who had been trading for six months. The awards needed to sound like something an established business owner would enter, and they needed at least 500 qualified entries to prove it.
The Hook
Established business owners do not respond to flattery. They respond to being understood. The campaign had to demonstrate that HLS knew what running a business in this market had actually cost them.
The campaign HLS developed was “Rooted in Excellence. Celebrating Homegrown Businesses that Bloom”, built around the Protea. “Rooted” was a deliberate counter to the startup narrative, signalling a competition for businesses with a track record behind them. The Protea carried the emotional weight — standing for something that endures conditions which kill most things, a fair description of running a business in South Africa for two decades.
The campaign was built on three pieces of research. The client’s own Q1 2024 SME Confidence Index put 83% of SMEs expecting growth and 69% expressing confidence in the economy, up 13% year on year, and holding even through pre-election anxiety. That told us the audience was resilient rather than nervous, so a message about endurance would land where a message about reassurance would not. Sector research showed funding was reasonably accessible, but only 47 of 197 funding sources offered mentorship and training alongside capital, and scaling remained the point where South African entrepreneurs stalled. A social audit found inconsistent posting, text heavy content and thin engagement on channels that already carried strong brand recognition, which meant the reach was there and the work was not.
The Line
HLS launched on 15 May with a media roundtable that drew 10 top tier outlets, including SABC News, Daily Maverick and Business Day. The follow up release delivered 33 press clippings and a feature in the Mail & Guardian.
Fourteen days later the country went to the polls.
National election coverage was about to absorb the entire news agenda, and the entry deadline was fixed. Waiting for the cycle to clear was not an option. So HLS repositioned the pitch, moving the awards out of the business pages and into the economic stability conversation, framing SME resilience as evidence of continuity during a period of political uncertainty. Same programme, different entry point. It made the material useful to newsrooms that had room for nothing else, and it held the campaign in print through the weeks it should have gone dark.
During Women’s Month, HLS positioned executive Gugu Mjadu and past winner Shona McDonald in a one hour Metro FM feature, with further Tier 1 interviews on CNBC Africa and eNCA. As the deadline approached, a last call media alert and user generated social content built urgency among the business owners still deciding.
Once finalists were confirmed the campaign shifted to profiling. HLS built an individual narrative for each finalist and pitched them into national, regional and trade media for dedicated features, then carried those stories across social through to the gala. A winner’s release went out the moment the announcement was made.
The Sinker
620 qualified entries, up 55% on 2023 and 24% above a target of 500.
- Over 90% of coverage in Tier 1 titles, against an 80% target
- R3.5 million in media value generated across the six-month period
- 2,873 new followers against a target of 2,500
- Social reach of 2,564,028 against a 2.5 million target
- 2,454 link clicks to the entry site against a target of 2,000
Business Partners went into 2024 needing to prove that Entrepreneur of the Year still commanded the room, and came out of it with the entry book to prove it. 620 qualified entries, 24% past target and up from 400 the year before, in a year when the news agenda belonged to an election. Over 90% of that coverage landed in Tier 1 titles, which is the currency an awards programme carries into every sponsor and partner conversation it has, because a competition is valued on the calibre of who enters it and the quality of the titles that cover it. Social stopped being a broadcast channel and became a measurable contributor to entries, sending 2,454 clicks straight to the entry site. The programme closed the year with a larger and better qualified entrant pool, a position that separates it from startup noise, and a Tier 1 media footprint it did not have twelve months earlier. All three are assets it takes into the next cycle.
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