INTERNATIONAL MARKETING COUNCIL SPONSORS GLOBAL AD CONTEST

TO PROMOTE BRAND SOUTH AFRICA

IMC teams with CMO Council in First Ever People-Inspired Nation Branding Initiative Using a
Social Media Network

Get Wildly Creative About South Africa Ad Contest on Zooppa.com Invites Global Citizens to
Dream Up Great Ways to Promote 2010 FIFA World Cup Destination

JOHANNESBURG (March 2, 2010) – South Africa's International Marketing Council,

custodian of Brand South Africa, is sponsoring a first of its kind online ad competition
to "crowdsource" creativity and insight from around the world to showcase South
Africa as a vibrant and competitive nation brand.

Launched in conjunction with the Chief Marketing Officers Council, a global

organization of senior marketing executives, the Get Wildly Creative About South
Africa ad contest is being hosted on Zooppa.com, a revolutionary social media site
which brands like Microsoft are using to generate people-inspired viral advertising.

The IMC, the CMO Council and its new GeoBranding Centre will use viral
communications, online conversations, blog postings and cyber chatter to talk up
interest and participation in this innovative country branding initiative targeted at the
world’s 1.7 billion Internet users.
Current and aspiring creative professionals, digital media buffs, South Africans at
home and abroad, and anyone whose heart and soul are stirred by South Africa and its
continent are invited to come up with inventive ways to produce a fresh and
evocative message about a country on which the world's attention will be riveted
when the 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off in 100 days.

“With the world's eyes upon it as host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa is
seeking to establish itself as a competitive and relevant nation brand,” said Paul
Bannister, CEO of the International Marketing Council of South Africa. “We’re excited
about the potential for social media channels to generate greater discourse and
narrative about our brand from people who have experienced or researched our
special place in the world.”

Entry information and a creative brief designed by the IMC, giving background on the
contest assignment and links to South African resources, are available on Zooppa.com.

Cash and prizes -- donated by SA Tourism, in-country partners and creative technology
solution providers -- will be awarded in a range of categories including Best Print
Campaign, Best Online Banner Campaign and Best Video Segment or Commercial. Top
entrants will have their work showcased globally to the CMO Council’s 5000 members
who control more than $150 billion in annual marketing spend. Winners will be
recognized at a special IMC-hosted reception in New York City, the world's media
center and creative hub. They will also win trip packages courtesy of SA Tourism and
other travel, hospitality, lodging and merchandise partners in South Africa.

The CMO Council's founder and executive director Donovan Neale-May is a prominent
member of the Global South Africans "digiaspora" initiative the IMC has launched to
help mobilize the talent and knowledge of South Africans who live abroad but who,
like Neale-May, retain a deep commitment to the country’s success and the well-
being of its people.

“We’re looking for inspired messaging and out-of-the-box advertising executions that
capture and convey the essence, attributes and qualities of Brand South Africa,” said
Donovan Neale-May, who pointed to the country’s growing tourism, trade and
economic development success.

With Get Wildly Creative About South Africa and the “digiaspora” project, the IMC
extends its track record of pioneering exciting new uses of social media to build the
South African brand. In addition to operating the hugely successful national portal,
southafrica.info, and mediaclubsouthafrica.com, which offers high quality copy and
royalty-free pictures for use by global media, IMC has launched the people-powered
brandsouthafricablog.com, plus an array of Twitter streams and Facebook pages. In
2008 the IMC scored another first by bringing top US bloggers to South Africa to live
blog the country’s accomplishments in science and technology.

The contest is part of a major Nation Branding research project being undertaken the
Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and the International Marketing Council of
South Africa, which is responsible for defining and shaping Brand South Africa’s image
throughout the world.

With social media networks hosting billions of monthly visitors, conversations and
connections, the CMO Council’s GeoBranding Center is looking to evaluate the level of
voice, influence and creative pull in these interactive online communities,
particularly as it relates to shaping perceptions of countries, destinations, locations
and origin of products.

Separately, the CMO Council’s GeoBranding Center will be conducting monthly

analytics on the tonality, sentiment and prevalence of conversations, commentary
and news about Brand South Africa leading up to the four-week FIFA World Cup event,
starting June 11. It will source Social Media Analytics from PR Newswire, which tracks
the tonality and sentiment of global media coverage through 30,000 online news
sources in 12 languages. It also intelligently agents and analyzes five million forum
posts a day, as well as conversations and commentaries in 20 million blogs social
media networks, news groups, bulletin boards, etc.
With billions invested in this year’s Africa sports spectacular, the CMO Council’s
GeoBranding Center will be looking at the host country’s effectiveness in shaping
perceptions and using the global football extravaganza to optimize its reputation and
appeal worldwide. Key determinants of Nation Brand value creation will be effective
message management and clarity of brand positioning relative to the visitor/player
experience, global media attention, and viral online community conversations and
content sharing. Special research in the area of Nation Branding and the measurement
of mega-sports event sponsorship effectiveness is a new area of authority leadership
by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

About the International Marketing Council of South Africa

The International Marketing Council of South Africa was established in August 2002 to
help create a positive and compelling brand image for South Africa. At that time, the
world was unsure about what to think of South Africa, with many different messages
being sent out by various sources. This did very little to build the country’s brand and
it was evident that to attract tourism and investment there was a need to co-ordinate
marketing initiatives to make them more effective. This led to the creation of the
IMC. There are many benefits to having a consolidated brand image, with the most
important being that a consistent Brand South Africa message creates strategic
advantages in terms of trade and tourism for the country in an increasingly
competitive marketplace. More info at: http://www.brandsouthafrica.com/

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge

exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior
corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global
industries. The CMO Council's 5,000 members control more than $125 billion in
aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing
and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest
communities include over 12,000 global executives across 100 countries in multiple
industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in
the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic
interest groups include the GeoBranding Center, Coalition to Leverage and Optimize
Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience
Board, LoyaltyLeaders.org, Online Marketing Performance Institute, and the Forum to
Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). www.cmocouncil.org. 

For more information contact:

Simon Barber
US Country Manager
International Marketing Council of South Africa
Phone: +1 202 642 4994
Cell: +1 202 276 5084 / +27 76 061 3295
Skype: barber.simon
Email: simonb@brandsouthafrica.com