Cosmopolitan South Africa recently launched the much-anticipated Cosmo Awards on Instagram – a brand-new property billed to find the very best in fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle and food photography on the platform.
In proud association with cutting-edge electronics brand Samsung, the first-ever local Cosmo Awards on Instagram will celebrate the most outstanding South African Instagram feeds.
To enter and be considered as a candidate, participants must share at least three of their best images on Instagram and tag @CosmopolitanSA and @SamsungMobileSA, with the caption #CosmoIGAwards. Entries close on 29 August 2017.
The finalists will be selected by a panel of judges: Cosmopolitan editor Holly Meadows, Cosmopolitan fashion editor Cleo Marcopoulos, and Cosmopolitan junior beauty editor Aphiwe Khambule.
‘We’re looking for visual game-changers and emerging image-makers, the young creatives telling beautiful stories through an aesthetic medium. Our aim is to encourage, identify, harness and celebrate local South African talent within the Instagram platform,’ says Meadows.
The winner of the competition will be crowned with the title of Cosmopolitan’s 2017 Instagramer of the Year, and their photographic work will be exhibited in a pop-up gallery open to the public. The winner will receive the impressive new Samsung Galaxy S8 and be sent on an all-expenses-paid trip for two to an international destination, where they will take over the Cosmopolitan Instagram account to document their trip live. They will also have their photographs curated and published in an exclusive four-page travel feature in Cosmopolitan magazine.
In addition, five finalists will be acknowledged and will also win the new Samsung Galaxy S8. All finalists will be celebrated at a pop-up gallery, where their best photographs will be exhibited alongside the overall winner.
“As Samsung is constantly chasing and developing innovation to make our customers’ lives easier, it made perfect sense for us to integrate our Galaxy S8 and S8+ mobile phones into the COSMO Awards on Instagram,” says Justin Hume, chief marketing officer of Samsung South Africa. “We are known to innovate with our customers in mind – and what better way to enrich their lives then through a bit of fun such as this competition?
“The Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ is not just a great smartphone, it’s also the perfect companion to capture life as it happens. You won’t miss a moment with the 12MP rear and the 8MP front cameras being extremely accurate and very fast. With leading technology, different camera modes and built-in filters, the Galaxy S8 captures light and colour sharply, making objects appear almost lifelike, just the way you saw and experienced them.”
The campaign also includes an Instagram workshop, for which readers can buy tickets, and where they can learn how to style and shoot the perfect Instagram images using the Samsung S8. The event will be held in Cape Town’s East City Studios on 12 August, and will include expert photography advice and hands-on style-and-snap scenarios with the Cosmopolitan fashion and beauty team.
With an annual Instagram reach of 1,5-million, and 12-million online users reached via social media in the last six months, the Cosmopolitan Awards on Instagram in collaboration with Samsung is set to guarantee the winner a lot of new Insta followers.
