The FM AdFocus Awards show young aspirant minds that their ambition is valid
Following her first term as a jury member for the FM AdFocus Awards, Tumi Rabanye, head of strategy at The Brave Group, shares her thoughts on how the AdFocus Awards can shape the advertising industry, especially for young aspirants
Sitting as a jury member for the 2019 AdFocus Awards connects yet another one of those nodes in my career. It’s eye-opening and exciting, but most of all it raises a great deal of nostalgia for me.
As a teenage girl in Mahikeng with a keen interest in advertising, there was very little to validate my interest, and even fewer people to point to for an example. This world I was so interested in seemed far, impenetrable by “people like me”, and the education thereof hard to map out. The annual AdFocus Awards announcement (accessible only in print) was a necessity when it came about; it helped confirm to myself and those around me that there was method to my madness. It gave names, faces, designations, titles, companies referred to as “agencies” and context for campaigns, all of which would make the subject of conversation with anyone who dared engage me. I have to tip my hat to my folks, who were incredible listeners!..
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