HIGH LEVEL SUPPORT FOR THE "PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN"
CAMPAIGN
12 March 2001
Senior government, labour, business and community leaders have
endorsed their commitment to Nedlac's Proudly South African
campaign, which aims to stimulate economic growth and job creation
through increased demand for South African goods and services.
Nedlac's most senior decision-making body, the Executive Council,
agreed at its meeting on Friday that the implementation of the
campaign should receive high priority attention from all the Nedlac
constituencies.
The first step in implementing the campaign will involve setting
up an organisational structure to drive and manage the campaign. In
the interim, whilst the organisation is being established, the
constituencies have agreed to dedicate representatives' time to
ensure the campaign is implemented.
The implementation of the Proudly South African campaign follows
on the commitment by Nedlac constituencies in the Presidential Jobs
Summit to a campaign of this nature.
The objectives of the "Proudly South African" campaign include
the following:
- To raise the awareness of the high quality and diversity of
South African products and services and therefore provide economic
development and job creation in South Africa;
- To create a premium "Proudly South African" brand, quality of
design and performance as well as signifying local content, fair
labour standards and sound environmental practices;
- To assist South African organisations to raise their standards
of quality, labour and environmental practices;
The details of the campaign are being worked out through a
Nedlac task team, which appointed a consultancy to research the
basis for an effective campaign. Kaiser Associates, an
international strategy consultancy, canvassed the views of key
stakeholders in South Africa, including business, labour,
government and community groups. It also identified world-class
practices of similar campaigns in other countries, including
Australia, the USA and Malaysia.
During the process of developing the campaign, parties began to
unearth a wide variety of South African achievements, which were
not widely known before. It became increasingly clear that South
Africans, who often focus on the negative, have much to be proud of
in the quality of South African products and services and the work
behind those outputs, which have been achieved without compromising
on labour and environmental standards. The campaign will therefore
also include an element of profiling success stories in order to
rekindle a sense of pride in being South African.
The campaign team will work closely with all other South African
branding initiatives, in particular export and investment branding
through Trade and Investment South Africa (TISA), the International
Marketing Council (IMC) and SATOUR.
It is envisaged that the initial campaign infrastructure and the
campaign strategy, which will include a marketing strategy, will be
in place by April 2001. The marketing campaign will be launched in
early June 2001.
For further information contact Michelle de Bruyn at michelle@nedlac.org.za
Jennifer Wilson
Communications Coordinator
Nedlac
(011) 482-2511
fax: 482 4650