Greater Good South Africa

The Loeries Ubuntu Award, which recognises brands contributing to social and environmental change, awarded a Silver to MTN Qhubeka and a Bronze to the Volkswagen BlueMotion campaign. GreaterCapital assessed entries to this category for their impact.

MTN Qhubeka - Silver

Qhubeka, which in Nguni means to “move forward”, is an innovative work-to-earn CSI project with a focus on long-term sustainability, helping rural communities move forward one bicycle at a time. Adults and children earn bicycles as a reward for work done in their communities.

Twelve out of 16 million South African children walked to school in 2011, some for more than 2 hours each way leaving them tired and struggling to concentrate on their work. Bicycles are the most effective and economical method of addressing this common African problem, and working in partnership with Qhubeka, MTN is addressing various socioeconomic challenges that face disadvantaged communities.

MTN position themselves as being in the business of connecting people and changing their lives. Qhubeka has obvious synergies in these areas as the program directly improves the lives of all who choose to take part. There is also a great fit between Qhubeka and MTN’s essence of “We can do” as well as their purpose to mobilise people’s potential as the personal and community upliftment displays. In addition, MTN’s professional cycling team, Team MTN Qhubeka, raise public awareness of this worthy cause and are a cause-related sponsorship that aims to help realise Africa’s first world-class cycling team, and to leverage wider corporate support for the establishment of cycling as a viable mobility model.

Not only are these cyclists high-profile ambassadors, but they also donate 5% of all their winnings to the cause. MTN clients who activate the Qhubeka loyalty benefit on their contracts can also amass and then donate loyalty rewards back to the Qhubeka initiative, which go towards the costs of the bicycles that are then given to the relevant community entrepreneurs. This partnership addresses truly African challenges with relevant solutions and is assisting with the uplifting of various communities on a sustainable basis and looks set to keep growing after an extremely positive first year.

Volkswagen The BlueMotion Label

The objective was to create a new print campaign for Volkswagen BlueMotion – the more eco-conscious side of VW. Every BlueMotion car contains a number of small, considered changes that reduce the vehicle’s impact on the environment. But the insight was that magazines clutter up people’s homes, and then eventually end up in landfills, meaning that all the print advertising inside them contributes to paper wastage. 

This was not an ordinary print ad, but a small insert that could actually be used to recycle the whole magazine. No longer needing photography, the production budget was put into buying prepaid postage. So all that people would have to do is peel off the label’s backing, stick it on the front cover, and drop it into their nearest post box. By making use of the existing infrastructure in a different way, a small print insert turned ordinary post boxes into a network of makeshift recycle bins. 

The whole magazine (the entire medium) became part of the BlueMotion message. And although currently just in one region (Cape Town), with early reports suggesting a roughly 9% response rate so far (nearly double the 5% expected).