Awards aplenty for UCT’s communication and marketing team

Over the last year, the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Communication and Marketing Department (CMD) has had ample reason to celebrate, having received numerous national and international industry awards.

News of the department’s most recent awards arrived at the end of June from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). CMD’s head of video production, Roxanne Harris, received an IABC Gold Quill 2021 Best of the Best Award in the Audio/Visual category for Thuma Mina. The award-winning video featured the UCT Choir’s rendition of the isiZulu hymn, and pays homage to members of the university community who have been working tirelessly on the frontline of the pandemic.

UCT News senior writer, Helen Swingler, was also recognised in the recent IABC Gold Quill awards. Her piece The dead teach in a universal language received international industry recognition with an IABC Gold Quill 2021 Merit Award.

The director of CMD, Kylie Hatton, said: “These awards are important for benchmarking the department against our peers, across competitor universities in the world but also corporates and non-governmental organisations.

“The IABC makes visible the best examples of creativity and expertise in communication marketing across the world.”

“The IABC makes visible the best examples of creativity and expertise in communication marketing across the world,” said Hatton.

Aniqah Deers, CMD’s head of branding and campaigns, agreed: “Entries into national and international awards programmes is a benchmarking exercise that assists UCT to develop and maintain its brand reputation and positioning in the communications and marketing sector / sphere.

“It compares our work outputs to that of other higher education institutions as well corporate organisations and provides the opportunity to reflect and improve on our innovation and creativity. The platform also presents an opportunity to showcase our individual and integrated team outputs in a way that brings value to the identified segmented market in a measured and tangible way.”

‘Incredible, important confirmation’

During 2020, and over the last six months, CMD also received a further 15 international and national industry awards. The award-winning projects and the recipients are as follows:

• Writer Carla Bernardo’s UCT’s hijab-wearing rugby player talks inclusivity won a Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence Silver Award in the Writing category. She also received two IABC Silver Quill Merit Awards for Ben Kies: The Cape radical and S-s-some things to know about snakes in the Writing category.
• CMD’s Newsroom and Video Production’s (NVP) Transformation Report 2019 won a CASE Circle of Excellence Gold Award in the Publications category and a Silver Quill Excellence Award.
• Writer Niemah Davids won two IABC Silver Quill Merit Awards for Centre has ‘Africanised’ neuroscience and Touch down for SA’s banking Siri in the Writing category.
• Swingler won two IABC Silver Quill Merit Awards for Body of work: reflections of an anatomist and Women take top spots in civil engineering at UCT in the Writing category. She won an Excellence Award in the Writing category for “The dead teach in a universal language”, which made the award eligible for the international Gold Quill Awards.
• NVP’s Web Content won two IABC Silver Quill Merit Awards in the Communication for the Web category for the UCT December 2019 Graduation feature page and the Sutherland Reburial feature page.
• Jolene Steenkamp from CMD’s Marketing and Stakeholder Relations unit won an IABC Silver Quill Merit Award for the Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture Series, in the Special and Experiential Events category.
• NVP’s Video Production won an IABC Silver Quill Merit Award for An honorary encore for renowned South African ballet master and a Silver Quill Excellence Award for “Thuma Mina”, making it eligible for the Gold Quill Awards.

On the multiple awards, CMD’s executive director, Gerda Kruger, said: “It is an incredible and important confirmation that the work in CMD is up there and competing with the best in the world.

“It is wonderful to have such creative and excellent colleagues in the CMD team!”