UMC marketing manager, Luleka Ngqulunga explains that the aim of the competition was to engage the surrounding youth target market. “This stems from research which revealed that the majority of our customers are between the ages of 35-60. The aim of the competition was therefore to target new shoppers from the youth market,” she explains.
To ensure this youth-focus, the criteria for the competition was that only full time students from the nearby Mangosuthu University were eligible to submit entries.
To attract this profile of entrant, Primedia Lifestyle Group’s advertising and branding agency Red Pixel was responsible for the creative aspects of the campaign and set about designing a grungy, industrial look and feel poster that invited students to design the mall’s new logo and stand in line to win R20 000.
Entries were whittled down to five finalists and Red Pixel then helped to refine each entry. The subsequent winning entry was chosen based on its graphical representation and rationale as to why that design was chosen. It features the vernacular payoff like “Azidle ekahaya!” or “Come support your own”.
UMC falls under the portfolio of Primedia Lifestyle Marketing Service’s Busisiwe Mahlaba who cites the competition as an excellent example of weaving local personality, culture and language into a mall’s marketing material to ensure that it’s locally relevant and meaningful.
“Elements such as strap lines with a vernacular reference have massive community appeal but first prize is to get the community involved in the actual creation of these elements, as was the case with this initiative.”
The Primedia Lifestyle Group is an Unlimited company. For more information, visit
www.primedialifestyle.co.za.