In celebration of 25 years of South African democracy, Anglo American has announced its partnership with City Press and ByDesign Communications. 

The trio saw the creation of '25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa', a multiplatform and content-driven editorial campaign.

The campaign is aimed at multiple audiences ranging from:
  • market investors and businesspeople
  • political decision-makers
  • engaged communities and citizens, and
  • internal stakeholders.
The campaign set out to increase awareness about Anglo American's significant and multifaceted contribution to the country's economy. Committed to a R72-billion investment over the next five years, the initiatives span their innovative FutureSmart mining technology, community interventions in areas such as education, healthcare, entrepreneurship as well as responses to environmental concerns and social injustices.

According to the team behind the campaign, the content was planned and crafted using industry experts and reporters to create accurate and quality journalism.

Community and stakeholder interviews and collaborations were conducted to ensure authenticity and a balanced share of voice for all stakeholders. Supporting and enhancing the stories were graphics, animation and video content.

The campaign was launched in print and supported in social media before going online. From there, it was packaged and delivered across multiple platforms to a wider engaged audience.

For the launch, the City Press Sunday edition carried a 58-page glossy magazine, with additional copies provided to Anglo American for distribution internally and to stakeholders.

The City Press online audience could access all feature articles plus 'The Road Ahead' leadership interview on a dedicated 'special report' page, while a digital version of the magazine was also available.

For the next 25 working days, the City Press morning e-newsletter featured one of the reasons to believe articles, giving readers an optimistic start to the day.

To extend the audience, the Daily Sun website included a meta-tag and a campaign tag linking to '25 Reasons to Believe in South Africa' for each day of the campaign.

In addition, eight promotional e-newsletters, focusing on the selected editorial pillars and 'The Road Ahead leadership interviews', were delivered to the online database creating an audience segment of 767 000 readers.

One reader's said, "I have started checking my email before I start work, it gives me hope and encouragement." The scale was achieved with 1.4 million City Press readers being supplemented by 767 784 targeted individuals in the Media24 network.

According to the campaign metrics, online views exceeded the target by 40%. The average open rate for all newsletters was 54%, rising to 77.8% for the highest. The average time spent on stories was 3 minutes and 10 seconds, rising to 4 minutes and 39 seconds for the longest time.

The CTR for best performing posts were 3.04% on Facebook and 2.94% on Twitter. 

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