Glitz and glamour at the Pendoring Awards as top agencies win big

● The big winners of the evening were Promise (Prestigious Umpetha Award) and Red & Yellow Creative School of Business (Overall Student Winner)

● The show, directed by Ilana Cilliers, featured an exceptional line-up, including Jefferson Tshabalala, MoMo Matsunyane and Siyabonga Mthembu.

By Jojokhala C. Mei

Hot on heels of the Pendoring Indigenous Languages Symposium at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre on Tuesday 19th November 2024, came the crowning 21st November 2024 night prestigious Pendoring Awards celebrating advertising and marketing public communication in all nine South African indigenous language.

Interesting to see that what started decades ago both feet on the Afrikaans language has successfully morphed to include all the other indigenous SA languages. Even the entertaining artists pulled off many languages, like Jeff ‘Bobs’ Tshabalala speaking isiXhosa, and theatre director Kgomotso ‘MoMo’ Matsunyane speaking seTswana.

Entries were judged in nine categories, including Print, Fim, Outdoor and Out of Home, Radio, and so on. You could say the Professional Gold and Silver, plus Professional Craft Awards in nine categories were the mainstay; but the Overall Student Winner and Student Awards tells how dead serious Pendoring is about growing their own timber. At the Indigenous Languages Symposium the past Tuesday, student finalists Sive Mahlangu (indigenous languages & culture

information App), and Natassia Mnguni (chemical bonding demonstration App), each presented their proof-of-concepts in a competition.

Back to the awards, where the legend/KhuluKhulu Award went to Strategic Communications PhD extra-ordinaire Dr Roela Hattingh of the University of Johannesburg who’d left audiences in stitches only two days before at the same Symposium.

After sweeping many awards in different categories the fabulous FLUIT Campaign eventually beat all other Gold Award winners to clinch the Umpetha Award, then contest on The One show in the USA soon. Go Fluit Go. And one Ogilvy and Mather Agency Creative Director Ntando Msibi who’d made a treadmill of the stage was impressed by the evening. See list of winners below.

The Pendoring Awards challenged South African creatives to #SayItInYourLanguage, and the best of the best of the advertising, publishing, film and radio industry were crowned during an elaborate ceremony on 21 November. Promise earned the coveted Prestigious Umpetha trophy for their The Vluit Project campaign, which was developed for AfriSam. The Overall Student winner, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, won for their Toughees package design.

“The annual Pendoring Awards not only celebrates the creative sector’s outstanding work produced in indigenous languages; it also highlights the transformative power of communication in these languages,” says Eben Keun, General Manager of the Pendoring Awards. “This year’s theme, #SayItInYourLanguage, perfectly captures how language connects us to our roots and allows us to express our true selves.”

The awards show was written and directed by Ilana Cilliers (The Lionness and Johnny is nie dood nie), with MoMo Matsunyane as co-director, writer and host (Naledi Award winner for Hlakanyana: The Musical, 2023 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre) and Jefferson Tshabala as writer and co-host (2020 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre). The show was performed in all of South Africa’s indigenous languages, and your language (and, by extension, your culture) was posed as a place to go home to – a home you can carry with you.

The performance was framed by a simple narrative, beginning at the Tower of Babel and the moment when humanity’s lack of understanding of each other’s languages caused them to break apart and begin their journey in search of a new home.

Poetry and prompts contributed by Cilliers, Matsunyane, Tshabalala, Siyabonga Mthembu (co-musical director), Gontse Makhene (musical director and featured artist), and the audience explored memories and current manifestations of home (objects, meals, songs etc.), displacement and loss, and other meanings of home (when home is not a place), amongst other things.

The performance ended back at the tower, now adorned with a mix of South African cultural objects, which became a metaphor for South Africa, our home, our own reclamation of Babel. Here, we speak different languages, and while we don’t always understand each other, we celebrate the beauty in that.

Freshly Minced served as executive producer of the event and awards show.

This year, as winners of Prestigious Umpetha, Promise’s Vluit Project will be entered into the coveted international awards platform, the One Show. Yash Egami, Chief Operating Officer of the One Show, announced the winner on the evening from New York. “In 2024, we’ve expanded our relationship with Pendoring meaningfully. Pendoring’s Prestigious Umpetha Award now serves as a gateway to global recognition,” said Egami. This year’s winner will be directly entered into The One Show, ensuring that the most innovative work in South African indigenous languages competes on the world stage.” The winning project, Vluit, is an initiative that developed a means for workers on labour sites to communicate across language barriers. Using the cultural phenomenon of how the “vluit”, or the human whistle, is used within local communities as an informal way to communicate, to create a new linguistic system for labour sites using unique whistles for specific actions.

“We are proud that the Pendoring Awards broke records again this year, receiving even more entries than in previous years. Through feedback from adjudicators and participants alike, it is clear that the Pendoring Awards plays an important role in impacting the careers and ambitions of many young creatives,” said Keun. “We are proud to contribute to the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 – 2032) through Pendoring, and feel inspired by the exceptional quality of work produced in indigenous languages each year.”

The top five ranked agencies for This Year’s Pendoring Awards are:

1. The Odd Number

2. Promise

3. Joe Public United

4. Halo

5. Boom

The top three ranked schools are:

1. IIE-Vega

2. Red & Yellow Creative School of Business

3. AAA School of Advertising

4. University of Johannesburg

5. Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography

The top publisher for this year was New Africa Books, who won a Gold Pendoring for the publication design of Ngabe udlala eziphi ezemidlalo uMpumi? written by Lebohang Masango. Masango is an established children’s books writer, whose books in the Mpumi series have been translated into all of South Africa’s indigenous languages.

The points were awarded on the strength of finalists (2 points), Pendoring craft certificate (4 points), Gold Craft (7 points), Silver Pendoring (8 points), Gold Pendoring (10 points), Campaign Gold (15 points), Campaign Silver (12 points), Campaign Craft Certificate (6 points), Campaign Gold Craft (10.5 points), Prestigious Umpetha Award (20 points), Overall Student Award (20 points).

The 2024 Pendoring campaign. “#SayItInYourLanguage,” was conceptualised by Joe Public, the winners of the 2023 Prestigious Umpetha Award.

‘The profound kinship of language with the world’ which ensured that language was the material writing of the world’ saw to it that language did not arbitrarily signify a concept or refer to an object but in the process of naming the world also captured and enclosed it. The word had the same reality as the world it represented.’ T’KAMO AND MASTOR: Invention of Africa In a South African Painting, by Rob Joseph.