Since 1999, AngloGold Ashanti has been involved in many gold jewellery design competitions – some independently and some in collaboration with the World Gold Council – around the world. They have formed an integral part of the company’s drive to promote gold and to develop and modernise the jewellery market for its product.
The formation of AngloGold Ashanti in 2004 (following the business combination of AngloGold and Ashanti Goldfields) provided the opportunity for the reassessment and reinvigoration of marketing projects. From 2005 the Brazilian and South African competitions were consolidated under the banner of AngloGold Ashanti AuDITIONS and each competition is run over a two-year cycle.
There have been a number of other important developments. While the established competitions in South Africa and Brazil have been re-branded and given fresh impetus, with the support of the World Gold Council, the company has launched three new competitions – in India, China and the Middle East – three of the world’s largest gold markets. While all the events fall under the broad AuDITIONS umbrella and all have the underlying purpose of stimulating an interest in and demand for contemporary gold jewellery, each event is distinctive and geared to the country or region in which it is held.
Three competitions were run in 2005 and 2006 – in Brazil, India and South Africa – and one was launched in China in 2006. This case study focuses on the contests held in Brazil.
AngloGold Ashanti has two operations in Brazil, a country with a robust jewellery industry (generating revenue of more than $690 million a year) and a reputation for innovative and sophisticated design. With the idea of capitalising on this market and raising the company’s profile in the country, AngloGold Ashanti launched its first gold jewellery competition (then called the Designer Forum) in 2002; the second followed in 2004 after which the event was firmly established as the foremost jewellery design contest in Latin America.
As testimony to this, the third competition – AuDITIONS 2006 – attracted some 1,300 entrants. There were two categories: the Designer Category for jewellery professionals and the Revelation Category, open to students and people drawn from related disciplines (the plastic arts, for instance). Designers were encouraged to create contemporary jewellery in 18-carat gold reflecting the attitudes and diversity of modern times in response to the theme, ‘Glacial Heat’.
As in the past, the competition had three stages: the regional seminars, the technical judging (known as the elimination stage) and the final judging session (known as the classification stage). The purpose of the forums is to brief participants on the rules of the competition and the theme, and to expose them to new perspectives and the latest trends through presentations by leading professionals in their fields.
In the earlier competitions, these forums were held in Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo. To broaden the competition in 2006, the sessions were held in Belo Horizonte (the capital of the state in which AngloGold Ashanti’s South American headquarters is located) and transmitted by video conference to seven other state capitals in the country: Bras?lia, Bel?m, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and S?o Paulo. Cl?udia Meinberg of AngloGold Ashanti Minera??o explains: “By widening our reach we attracted entries that reflected greater cultural diversity.”
During the first round of judging, held from 28 to 30 June at AngloGold Ashanti’s regional headquarters in Nova Lima, more than 900 submissions were evaluated by ‘technical’ judges, all specialists in the jewellery trade and related sectors. This resulted in the selection of 100 finalists in the Designer Category and 20 in the New Talent Category.
At the classification stage, held on 11 July in S?o Paulo, a panel of judges – a mix of specialists and jewellery consumers and connoisseurs – selected 24 pieces to form the Glacial Heat Collection.
An extensive publicity campaign got under way featuring leading Brazilian model Isabella Fiorentino as the face of the competition. Known as the competition’s ‘golden girl’, she was photographed on glaciers in Patagonia in temperatures below zero to give the organisers material to establish the theme of the competition.
More than 5 tonnes of ice were brought from S?o Paulo to Belo Horizonte to construct a glacial mansion with enormous blocks of ice being transformed into pieces of furniture and sculptures. Isabella Fiorentino and the internationally famous Brazilian model Jens Peter were filmed wearing the winning pieces in this unusual setting.
Again, great trouble was taken in an effort to make the prize-giving ceremony on 7 November a spectacular occasion. More than 300 people were involved in transforming the Serraria Souza Pinto, a 100-year-old building in Belo Horizonte, where the largest ice rink ever built in Brazil was placed in the centre of the venue. Politicians, business people and celebrities were among the guests at the event which featured a pair of Russian ice skating stars, a symphony orchestra and a showing of the winning jewellery by models led by Isabella Fiorentino.
Cl?udia Meinberg sums it up: “Through the special photographic sessions and by making the most of the events that go to make up the competition we were able to secure widespread coverage in newspapers and magazines and on websites and television programmes.”
AngloGold Ashanti Annual Report 2006 - Report to Society
