The PRovoke Africa SABRE Awards are Africa’s leading Public Relations Awards. Held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the 2022 SABRE Awards attracted more than 2000 entries from Public Relations agencies all over the continent. 

The collaboration between CCNA and APO Group impressed the jury, which was made up of industry leaders, and chaired by PRovoke Media founder Paul Holmes. 

For more than 75 years, Canon has been known for pioneering imaging products, and it is one of the world's largest manufacturers of cameras, copiers, and printers. CCNA has been active in Africa for more than 15 years providing high quality, technologically advanced products that meet the requirements of Africa’s rapidly evolving marketplace.

In 2020 and 2021, CCNA unveiled its monthly series called Africa Frontiers of Innovation - a project involving monthly discussions that bring together influential academics and pioneers of change to converse on the future of innovation impacting the African continent. 

With the world in the grips of the pandemic, CCNA wanted to tackle pertinent issues affecting technology on the continent, and inspire Africans from all walks of life to view every challenge as an opportunity.

As part of this initiative, CCNA approached APO Group to create a sustained thought leadership programme across Africa, with the goal of bringing together industry experts and award-winning journalists. Specifically, APO Group was tasked with developing a strategic plan, calendar, and facilitation of a monthly series of online events accessible to audiences in all 54 African countries.  

APO Group is uniquely positioned to execute a brief like this due to its team of local experts who all have vast experience in their region and, collectively, are able to utilize deep relationships with media in every part of Africa.

With the team’s efforts, this campaign resulted in a total of 10 Live LinkedIn sessions on subjects ranging from Education, Music, Digital Transformation, Sustainability, Information Security, Printing, and Women Trailblazers, with a total coverage of 4,466 attained in both English and Arabic. A total of 36 industry professionals from Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, and Senegal participated in the Live Sessions of the Africa Frontiers of Innovation series.

“For this campaign to be successful, we needed to ensure we had the best participants and access to the widest audience in Africa,” said Mai Youssef, Communications and Corporate Marketing Director, at Canon Central and North Africa. “APO Group has enabled us to reach deeper into the continent than ever before, and this award is a fantastic way to celebrate the work we have done together to get African people excited about technical innovation.”

“We relish the opportunity to work with organizations like Canon who are using their influence to make a difference to people’s lives all over Africa,” said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard (www.Pompigne-Mognard.com), Founder and Chairman of APO Group. “Because this project was truly Pan-African, we were able to demonstrate our media reach into all 54 countries, connecting technology experts with the widest possible audience.”

This is a joint press release by Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA) and APO Group.