When PR consultancy, Atmosphere Communications, was appointed by Sanlam Investment Management (SIM) to communicate through media relations, its repositioning as a third asset manager – a campaign for which the agency won
the overall PRISM Gold Award for 2008 – the challenge was definitely on.

Not only did the agency face a traditionally publicity-reticent client, but it was also one with a well-entrenched perceptional challenge of conservatism and old-style thinking. Says Account Director, Julie Etheridge, ‘Rightly or wrongly, our client, Sanlam Investment came with a legacy of being an old school South African company. Our task was to dramatically shift perceptions of its asset management arm – which incidentally was a slick, professional and modern operation. Over the past few years, the Sanlam Investment division was successful in shifting its business focus and its modern forward-thinking team, backed up by sold
investment research, was now delivering strong investment returns. It was also no longer only reliant on Sanlam Group’s life policy monies and it was able to compete with large independent players for funds from all over SA. However, there was a reputation “gap” between its new positioning and how the rest of the market, including key influencers in the financial media, viewed the company.

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