Creative Circle takes steps towards its new purpose

“To inspire the transformation of product, people and perception through the power of creativity.”

Xolisa Dyeshana, Creative Circle chairperson and chief creative officer at Joe Public.

The Creative Circle represents 63 member agencies from across the brand communications industry in South Africa. The monthly awards and annual awards represent the best work being produced by member agencies.

Partnership with the Loeries

The first of these moves was creating a new partnership with the Loeries.

This partnership has the Creative Circle’s board overseeing the strategic direction and management of the organisation while all administration and marketing will be handled by the Loeries.

According to Xolisa Dyeshana, Creative Circle chairperson and chief creative officer at Joe Public, this new partnership, “just makes sense.”

“The Loeries is the gold standard when it comes to running awards both locally and in the region,” says Dyeshana. “This new partnership sees us maintaining our autonomy with regards to running our programmes as well as our monthly and annual awards, while at the same time leaning on the Loeries infrastructure to help us do all of this more efficiently.”

Dyeshana continues to say he expects the partnership to also raise the standard of the entry process of the Creative Circle Awards.

“Our purpose at Creative Circle is to inspire the transformation of product, people and perception through the power of creativity. And we can’t do that without the right structures and processes in place. This has now been done with the Loeries’ help and we see Creative Circle going from strength-to-strength in the future.”

More focus on transformation

The Creative Circle has also embarked on an aggressive drive to accelerate transformation. New transformation codes have been implemented in both its internal programmes as well as in all programmes where the Creative Circle has direct influence.

There has also been a renewed focus on its partnership with the Umuzi Academy which recruits grassroots black talent into the creative industry. The partnership has already assisted more than 260 young people since it began in 2014 and the organisation believes these developments will assist it in growing that number exponentially in the coming years.

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More changes to come

Continues Dyeshana, “Over the next couple of months, the Creative Circle will be embarking on a project to identify other areas where it can further improve its operations and become more equipped to deal with the changes affecting the industry. These will include a review of the membership criteria to include the accommodation of freelancers, a growing phenomenon in ‘Ad-land’, as well as looking at how the organisation can accommodate new start-up agencies.”

Dyeshana also says there is a process underway to simplify the Creative Circle Awards ranking systems in an attempt to make them more transparent. This will result in an “always on” ranking table that all will have access to, which will be updated throughout the year as various awards shows happen.

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“Lastly, the Creative Circle is overhauling its website to make it easier to navigate and to bring it up to today’s standards. As part of this project, certain key Creative Circle properties such as The Hall of Fame and The Champions of Creativity Award, which were created to honour marketers doing brave work in the SA industry, will be revived,” he concludes.