The Brand Summit South Africa, successfully inaugurated in Cape Town in May 2018, and now partnered with the City of Johannesburg, its Host City until 2021, has the pleasure of announcing additional professional partnerships with the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) and the London-based City Nation Place Ltd.
The 2019 Brand Summit South Africa event will be hosted at The Forum, Bryanston, Gauteng, on 6 and 7 June 2019.
The Summit’s other professional partner, on a global level, is the World Communication Forum (https://www.wcfaglobal.com/founders-executives-vp-ambassadors), which is based in Davos, Switzerland. Its Founder and President, Yanina Dubeykovskaya, attended and spoke at the 2018 Brand Summit South Africa.
The inaugural event was opened by South Africa’s Chief Justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, who delivered a resounding keynote address anchored in the spirit of and values enshrined in the Preamble to South Africa’s Constitution. He had local and international delegates, including the media, glued to their seats, devouring every word he uttered. His entire address served as a good basis to start conversations about the potential that still resides in the country South Africa could be, if led and managed properly.
Gary Leih, a highly respected brand specialist and founder of Leih’s Truth and Propaganda, delivered a paper on the importance of country branding.
Other speakers at the inaugural summit were Professor Thuli Madonsela, South Africa’s former Public Protector; Bonang Mohale, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa; Kganki Matabane, CEO of the Black Business Council; Mteto Nyati, CEO of Altron; Simon Sussman, Chairman of Woolworths Holdings; Themba Maseko, former CEO of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS); Neeshan Bolton, Executive Director of the Achmat Kathrada Foundation, and other prominent leaders from corporate South Africa, the media, politics, education, sports, community development, social justice, etc.
Delegates came from as far afield as Nigeria, Ghana, France, Ethiopia, Namibia, Kenya, Russia and Switzerland, with others sending video messages from Beijing, New Delhi, Budapest, Moscow, etc. Unable to travel to Cape Town on the summit days due to last minute health matters, Mavuso Msimang, respected ANC veteran and Chairman of Corruption Watch, also sent a supportive video which was screened for the summit delegates.
“The partnership with PRISA and City Nation Place Ltd is a natural one for this event”, said Solly Moeng, the Summit Convener. “Much of the content of the Summit’s programme revolves around issues of country brand/ destination reputation management, issues which include Public Relations and Communication Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Reputation Management, Destination Marketing Strategies best practice, etc. Professionals in all these areas of activity have a lot to contribute and to learn from the planned discussions,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of PRISA, Executive Director Victor Sibeko said, “For us, Brand Summit South Africa will provide an ideal opportunity for our members to move from theory to discussing a real, evolving brand – a country brand. Public Relations and Communication Management professionals, who comprise the core of our membership, often get called upon/ commissioned to help brands engage their stakeholders through effective strategic communication. Such calls for intervention increasingly use complex communication tools and platforms; they also have to show measurable outcomes. A discussion on South Africa, the country brand, is very close to our hearts and will be exciting to analyse from various touch-points”.
City Nation Place Ltd creates forums around the world for sharing expertise to promote best practice in place branding and place marketing strategy. Bringing together national government teams, city marketing boards, mayoral teams, destination marketing organisations, and investment promotion boards, City Nation Place forums have become the go-to events to learn how to develop and implement a collaborative vision of the brand strengths and ambitions of a country, city, region or place, to drive economic development. The annual City Nation Place Awards also benchmark and celebrate innovative and effective place brand strategy and place marketing campaigns.
“City Nation Place is delighted to be partnering with the South Africa Brand Summit. It’s our mission to help places around the world develop a more cohesive and collaborative approach to place brand strategy and the South Africa Brand Summit contributes to this – bringing together the government and the private sector to share ideas for the positive development of South Africa, the country brand, on the world stage,” said Clare Dewhirst, on behalf of her organisation.
A brand-new discussion panel that was not part of the 2018 Summit, but has now been introduced into the 2019 programme, will consist of “Leaders of The Future” – dynamic speakers under the age of 35 who will share their views about and expectations of South Africa, the country brand, in the context of fast-evolving domestic, regional, continental and global dynamics.
The discussion of what they understand by “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and how they think South Africa should best prepare for it is expected to be particularly interesting.
In addition to an expected bigger African and global delegation, the 2019 keynote address will be delivered by the much-respected Kenyan, Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, Associate Professor of Public Law and Founding Dean at the Kabarak University School of Law in Kenya.
Sisa Ntshona, CEO of SA Tourism, will also speak at the 2019 Summit.
