Group account director, Jennifer Leppington-Clark, says Hill+Knowlton Strategies (H+K) is honoured to receive the award. “Doing work that matters is what excites us at Hill+Knowlton Strategies. And, when you have an opportunity to combine challenging and creative work with the need to raise awareness around an issue, then you’ve hit the sweet spot.”
The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation (TCCAF) asked H+K to develop a plan to tell its employees, stakeholders and the media about what it’s doing to help doctors, medical support staff and people infected with Ebola in West Africa.
The result was a well-planned and executed strategy, consisting of two approaches, to help spread the message across the continent through H+K’s wide network of South African and Pan-Africa media.
The strategy started with a PR campaign which leveraged all earned and owned media channels (traditional and social). Then Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the CNN Multichoice
African Journalist of the Year Awards was used to position Coca-Cola as a thought leader on Ebola.
At the Coca-Cola Company-sponsored breakfast, an event which forms part of the annual awards, H+K facilitated a panel discussion which challenged the media to do more in reporting the African story around Ebola. A key focus of the discussion was finding ways to refocus the African media’s gaze on Africa – where the real challenges of this epidemic lie.
“We hoped through this campaign to challenge African journalists to continue to tell the story of their continent and to keep this issue front and centre,” concludes Leppington-Clark.
For more information on Hill+Knowlton Strategies South Africa, visit
www.hkstrategies-africa.com.