The awards are enabled by Meta, MTN, Standard Bank and The Pendoring Awards.

"The impact of the pandemic was felt on brands' pockets, and as we all know, among the first things to go is marketing spend. This did not deter the SMARTIES Awards winners who turned lemons into lemonade, producing work that was on-point and relevant to the times that we live in and where every cent counts," says Luisa Mazinter, MMA South Africa chair emeritus at SMARTIES Awards.

These sentiments were echoed by the judges who expressed the need for brands to show real return on investment and that mobile marketing technologies can solve business problems by engaging target audiences in an authentic way — resulting in strong calls-to-actions.

"Where the SMARTIES is distinct is that it places a weighting of 40% on business outcomes, while strategy, creativity and execution account for 20% each. The reason for these splits is to ensure that the campaigns that are awarded are producing results that impact the business positively and are not only creative executions for the sake of it; there is no room for fluff," adds Mazinter.

The 2021 SMARTIES also saw the introduction of the Pendoring Multilingual Marketing Efficiency Award in partnership with Hollard. According to the duo, the timing for the award was opportune as it ties into the United Nations launch of the Decade of Indigenous Languages, which began this year in 2022 and ends in 2030.

Boniswa Pezisa, executive director at Mediology and Pendoring jury president, says, "In a multicultural nation, brands need to engage and reach their customers in their own languages. We have seen some of the entries use language in an amazing way and they've broken through with their marketing efforts."

As is traditional of the SMARTIES Awards, all winners — Gold, Silver and Bronze — will be entered into the global Mobile Marketing Associations' Business Impact Index (BII) Awards. Launched in 2018, it is a marketing index that identifies, ranks and awards top agencies, brands and technology enablers that drive significant business impact through mobile-first campaigns.

All the 2021 winners — from categories ranging from mobile video to location-based targeting — can be viewed here.

"We congratulate all the winners from the 2021 awards, the level of work is among the best we have ever had. This is a real boon especially given the conditions in which the work was being implemented," concludes Mazinter.

An awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, 6 April in Johannesburg to give the winners their trophies. The 2021 BII winners as well as the theme for 2022 SMARTIES Awards will also be announced. 

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