Meet Your IAB SA Bookmark Awards 2023 Jury Chairs

(Cape Town, 2 March 2023): Today, the IAB South Africa Bookmark Awards 2023 is pleased to present this year’s Jury Chairs for the digital media and marketing industry’s most prestigious awards. 

Now in its 15th year, the IAB SA Bookmark Awards continues to set the benchmark for digital media, marketing and technology by rewarding impactful digital work within the marketing sector. Khensani Nobanda, Jury President of the Bookmark Awards, says that a greater emphasis on diversity is a core component of this year’s awards, both in encouraging entries from a diverse pool of candidates and also through the selection of the Chairs heading up each Jury panel. “Transforming the industry from within is integral to the success of a diverse creative sector that mirrors South Africa and the world. This year’s selection includes a 50% gender split as well as 75% of the Chairs being people of colour.

“The world of digital marketing and advertising is also changing constantly but, ultimately, success remains the same. Connecting with the relevant audience and delivering real growth — and measurable growth — is how innovation and excellence intersect. It’s creativity that makes a real measurable impact. As more and more marketing budgets move to digital, the challenge of the return on marketing investment (ROMI) becomes even more expected from businesses. We need to ensure that the entries we ultimately award do not just deliver on ROMI but that they benchmark what is best-in-class for digital advertising,” adds Nobanda, about what she believes jurors will be looking for this year. “Personally, I want to be able to say to myself, ‘Man, I wish we’d done that!’” 

MEET THE JURY CHAIRS

The 2023 Jury Chairs will head up ​​eight awards categories that align with IAB South Africa’s mandate to empower the media and marketing industry to thrive in the digital economy. These include building brands digitally, putting users first, creating and maintaining a consistent approach to measurement, transforming the industry from within and providing trustworthy digital supply chains. Winning a Bookmark Award is a recognition of work that helps move the industry forward.

The Jury Chairs will offer their insight and expert knowledge and leadership during the judging process, with each heading up a diverse panel of jurors nominated by their industry peers. Heading up the Bookmarks’ panels during this year’s judging process are:

Marketers Panel: Jabulani Sigege, Executive Creative Director, Machine_

Honing his skills at some of South Africa’s most prolific agencies, Jabulani Sigege is a supporter and creator of work that has cultural capital — work that taps into and reflects the fabric of the culture, the country and society at large. He has helped shape iconic home-grown and international brands, amongst them Nando’s, the City of Cape Town, Heineken, Spotify, Prime Video and BMW. His work has been awarded locally and internationally, including at the Loeries, the Bookmark Awards, Pendorings, One Show and Cannes, to name a few, while he has also judged award shows at home and abroad. Jabulani’s real talent is people-watching (but not in a creepy way) to find out what makes us tick and using that to influence behaviour for brands.

Youth Action Panel: Senzo Xulu, Executive Creative Director, Conversation Lab

Raised in a family of medical professionals, Senzo Xulu has always loved the challenge of showcasing the value of creativity in traditionally non-creative spaces. An art director by trade, who served as the Head of Graphic Design at a university, Senzo now directs his passions as an executive creative director while making an honest attempt at pursuing his PhD in Brand Leadership. After almost 15 years, he cherishes the privilege to shape the next generation of creatives by making them proud of their cultural and creative heritages.

Publishers Panel: Rikashni Rangasamy, Senior Manager: Digital, SuperSport

Rikashni Rangasamy has been in the digital space at SuperSport for the past 11 years, focusing on content, social media, digital marketing and product development. She’s always had a passion for sports so is perfectly placed to shape the way SuperSport operates in the digital space. Rikashni started off managing social media when the social output was text-only score updates. She now heads up the digital team that manages the content output across the SuperSport website, app, social media and the SuperSport Blitz television channel, as well as oversees product development of the website and app. Rikashni and the SuperSport team have won numerous awards over the years, including Digital Brand of the Year at the Bookmark Awards and Digital Platform of the Year at the Sport Industry Awards. The industry has evolved tremendously over the last decade and the possibilities in the space are endless, which is the most exciting part of the job. Rikashni has introduced some of the leading global sports technologies into the business, changing the game for content development. This includes enabling AI-generated highlights packages and video content for key sporting events. She continues to focus on creating content and developing a platform that caters to sports fans across the continent.

Performance Marketing Panel: Asha Patel, Sub-Saharan Africa Head: B2B Marketing & CMM South Africa, Google

Asha Patel is Google’s Head of B2B Marketing for Sub-Saharan Africa and Head of Marketing for South Africa. She is an innovative leader with more than 18 years of experience in tech and media across emerging and developed markets. In her 12 years at Google, she has held multiple positions, leading global and regional brand relationships across the finance, FMCG and auto sectors. She spent three years at Google UK, during which she led global relations with advertiser Unilever and managed multiple global award-winning brand campaigns. During her four years at Standard Bank, she worked on establishing the group’s web and mobile presence across 18 African markets, prior to which she spent three years at a startup, The Mobile Games Company. Asha holds degrees in Informatics, Honours Cum Laude in Business Management and Harvard, Henley and Wits Business School certifications. She is a passionate diversity advocate and has served on IAB South Africa’s Transformation Council, where she led the Connected Womxn programme for C-Suite leaders, and was a jury chair. She has also been a member of multiple award-winning teams of the Loeries, the Bookmark Awards and Marketing Achievement Awards.

Social, Community & Influencer Marketing Panel: MJ Khan, Head of Group Digital Communications, Sasol Limited

MJ Khan is a PRISA-accredited chartered PR practitioner, academic, award-winning strategist, Bookmark Awards judge and category vice-chair, New Gen Awards judge, keynote speaker and lover of gherkins and hot wings. He heads up Group Digital Communications at Sasol, a global energy and chemicals company, where he is responsible for social media, and online and digital campaigns across the 22 countries in which Sasol operates. MJ previously led the social media department at Quirk, South Africa’s largest full-service digital agency (2012–2014), as well as worked at large advertising networks, including Ogilvy and Mather and TBWA Hunt Lascaris. He is proud to have been chosen as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2015, as one of the Top 100 Brightest Young Minds in 2013, ranked in the top 10 globally in the Digital Marketing Aptitude test, been a finalist for Social Media Marketer of the Year at the Bookmark Awards 2013 and been a part of the Golden Key Honours Society (since 2001). He has furthermore lectured media studies, journalism and public relations at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, the University of Witwatersrand and Triple A, amongst others; regularly writes for online and print publications; provides commentary and insight for broadcast news and presents at a variety of prestigious conferences. 

Builders Panel: Genie Botha, Head of Product Design, MakeReign

Genie Botha is a heavyweight UI/UX designer with more than 16 years of interactive design experience. She has adapted to an ever-evolving industry by embracing new methodologies, tools and technology, and has designed a broad range of products — from websites and apps to marketing materials and tools — for users as diverse as township traders to high-net-worth investors. Genie’s approach to problem-solving is pragmatic, always seeking the simplest and most efficient solutions to complex issues, and she can quickly recalibrate to ensure projects stay on track even when the direction shifts. For more than a decade, she has served as a design lead at digital agencies, utilising her hands-on leadership style to maintain attention to detail while never losing sight of the bigger picture. She believes in fostering team empowerment and growth through empathy, drive and honesty, allowing team members to thrive independently.

Innovative Engineers Panel: Tilesh Bhaga, Creative Director: Digital and Innovation, Grey Johannesburg

Tilesh Bhaga is a multi-award-winning creative technologist who prides himself on being a generalist in all forms of creativity and media. He comes from a development background with experience in design. Starting as a digital designer and developer in the advertising industry, he later migrated to innovation technology. Over the past seven years, Tilesh has focused on big ideas that demand his innovative tech insight and hacks to elevate their core concepts and effectiveness. Tilesh is currently ranked as the number two software developer and UX designer across Africa and the Middle East (as ranked by the Loeries 2022). Using his magical ‘nerdy’ powers responsibly, he has used his role as Creative Director of Digital and Innovation at Grey to bring all his tech and creative experiences to the creative process while slowly letting machines win the war against humans. 

Special Honours Panel: Paula Hulley, Managing Director, Digitas Liquorice

Paula Hulley is the Managing Director of Digitas Liquorice and has more than 20 years of experience in building brands and consumer-engaging experiences. Previously the CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) South Africa, Head of Digital and Innovation for Ogilvy CT and Managing Director of Gloo CT, Paula has worked with clients such as MultiChoice, Puma, Virgin Active, Audi, Vodacom, First National Bank, Samsung and Allan Gray. As an industry expert in digital innovation and the connected consumer, Paula leads teams and brands to perform at their best in this ever-changing territory. She is also currently studying towards a Master’s in Psychology to better understand the effect of zero-sum thinking on cooperation.

ENTER THE BOOKMARK AWARDS 2023 TODAY

Entries for the Bookmark Awards are now open. Any entry completed and paid for between Monday, 13 February and Tuesday, 22 March will receive a 10% Early Bird discount. Thereafter, normal rates will apply as per the outlined award fees for 2023.

Entries submitted past the entry deadline will be subject to a 10% late penalty fee. Late

fees are applicable from Tuesday, 25 April until Monday, 8 May. The awards ceremony

is set to take place on Thursday, 27 July.

ENTER THE IAB SA BOOKMARK AWARDS 2023 HERE.

This year, the Bookmark Awards adds another layer to its offering with a Masterclass to assist entrants to perfect their awards entries. The Masterclass will be hosted by Jury President Khensani Nobanda and Danni Pinch, Executive Creative Director (ECD) at King James Group, and will be held virtually on Tuesday, 7 March at 10 am.

SIGN UP FOR THE MASTERCLASS HERE.

For more information on the Bookmark Awards 2023, visit thebookmarks.co.za. Companies interested in sponsoring the Bookmark Awards 2023 categories can email razia@iabsa.net.

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Issued by Chimera Creative on behalf of IAB South Africa and The Bookmark Awards 2023. 

For more information on the Bookmark Awards 2023 Jury Chairs, click here. For media enquiries, contact zainab@chimeracreative.co.za.

About The Bookmark Awards

The Bookmark Awards is an IAB South Africa initiative that celebrates innovation, creativity and effectiveness within the media and marketing industry. It is the unrivalled benchmark of local advertising excellence. While The Bookmarks have always stood for prestige digital work, it also aims to drive digital change. Winning a Bookmark Award is a recognition of work that helps move the industry forward. thebookmarks.co.za

About the IAB South Africa

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) South Africa, formerly known as the DMMA, is an independent, voluntary, non-profit association focused on growing and sustaining a vibrant and profitable digital industry within South Africa. The IAB South Africa empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy and comprises 150 leading media companies, brands and technology firms working in digital marketing and media. The non-profit, non-government trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising while also educating brands, agencies, publishers and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. iabsa.net