Joe Public United stamps authority on Pendoring Awards

One of the many joys of being a South African is our love of language and our ability to use it fluidly. Work, migration, education, urbanisation, the places we live, friendships and marriage, to name a few, have influenced our languages to the point where most of us are more than bilingual, with the average South African using 2.84 languages, often in a single conversation.

It's this love that the advertising and communications industry celebrates every year at the Pendoring Awards, to showcase the richness of SA’s creative content in all its 10 indigenous languages. And no agency has yet to capture the #SpeakSouthAfrican spirit quite like brand and communications group Joe Public United. 

The group was awarded top honours by coming in as number one in the top 12 agencies of 2021. Together with its clients and growth partners it collected 29 awards: eight craft gold awards, four gold awards, five silver awards, two campaign silver awards, eight craft certificates and two campaign craft certificates.

Joe Public United prides itself on delivering on its purpose of growth and driving exponential growth. One of the many ways the group is doing this is by working together with its clients to create work that resonates with South Africans in a way that’s relevant and insightful — and diversity in language is a fantastic vehicle for this growth and creative excellence.

The group’s entries came from some of SA’s most loved brands like Flying Fish, Castle Milk Stout, Castle Free, Chicken Licken, Assupol, Vital and Nedbank and were entered in a range of categories, from Digital Communication, Design and Film, to Integrated campaigns, Out of Home (OOH), Print and Radio, and Live events, showing its ability to help brands connect with a local audience. 

“Without our clients and our people this wouldn’t have been possible, so thank you,” said Pepe Marais, Joe Public United group chief creative officer.

He said “being recognised as the top-ranked agency this year is a testament to the incredible partnerships we have with our clients who work with us to achieve our purpose of growth”.

The 26th Pendoring Awards were held as a virtual event on November 4 2021. Categories were only open to SA non-English languages. All entries had to be at least 70% in either Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele, siSwati, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, Setswana, Sepedi or Sesotho. 

This article was paid for by Joe Public United.