Case Study: TLU SA virtual walk against farm attacks

Overview

TLU SA, one of South Africa's organised agricultural unions, approached Edge Communications to help raise national and international awareness of farm attacks and murders, a crisis the union felt was not receiving the political attention or media coverage it deserved. Building on the momentum of a similar initiative in 2020, TLU SA wanted a campaign that would translate hard statistics into something the public could see, feel, and actively take part in.

Edge Communications was brought on to conceptualise, plan and execute the full public relations and social media campaign around this initiative, from messaging strategy through to media distribution and results reporting.

The challenge

Farm attacks are a recurring news story in South Africa, which made it difficult to cut through and hold public attention. TLU SA needed a campaign that would:

• Present the scale of the problem in a way that felt tangible rather than abstract
• Reach both a South African and an international audience
• Put pressure on government to treat farm attacks as a priority crime
• Build a sense of participation, not just awareness, among supporters
• Position TLU SA as the credible, data-driven voice on rural safety

Our approach

Edge Communications developed the "Virtual walk against farm attacks and murders", a symbolic 6,065km virtual route stretching from the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria through all nine provinces and back again, with every kilometre representing one farm attack recorded since 1990. The concept turned a statistic that was easy to scroll past into a distance the public could actually picture covering.

Our strategy rested on four pillars:

• 1. A symbolic, shareable core ideaBy tying the route length directly to the number of recorded farm attacks, the campaign gave media and supporters a single, memorable hook: one kilometre, one attack.
• 2. Bilingual, multi-platform contentEvery press release, social post and web page was produced in both Afrikaans and English, ensuring the campaign could travel beyond TLU SA's traditional Afrikaans-speaking base and reach international media covering South African affairs.
• 3. A dedicated participation platformWe built out the campaign landing pages (stapsaam.co.za, in both language versions) where supporters could register, view the route, and follow the walk's progress in real time, giving people a concrete way to take part even from home.
• 4. A province-by-province media dripRather than a single announcement, we scheduled a rolling sequence of stop-by-stop content as the virtual route passed through each province, each one paired with regionally specific statistics, keeping the campaign visible across the full 24-hour walk and the weeks leading up to it.

Execution

Media relations

Edge Communications drafted and distributed four official press releases between 23 May and 17 June, covering the campaign launch, the case for treating farm attacks as a priority crime, farmers' role in their own safety, and the significance of rural safety to TLU SA. These featured direct quotes secured from TLU SA leadership, including President Henry Geldenhuys and General Manager Bennie van Zyl.

Social media execution

Across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the campaign ran 36 scheduled posts per platform over the campaign period, including 19 posts on day one of the walk alone as the route passed each provincial stop, tracked under the campaign hashtags #plaaslewens #plaasstap #tlusa.

Email marketing

Press releases and updates were distributed via email to TLU SA's full network of members, supporters, media contacts and regional managers.

Broadcast and earned media

Edge Communications secured coverage across a spread of outlets, including Maroela Media, OFM (radio and online), Grond tot Mond, South Africa Today, and a live segment on RSG's current affairs programming on the closing night of the walk.

Results

Media reach

The campaign generated coverage across print, online and broadcast media, including two separate Maroela Media features (at launch and at close), multiple OFM articles and a dedicated podcast segment, and national radio coverage on RSG. This gave the campaign both regional agricultural-press credibility and national broadcast visibility.

Email engagement

Across the four press release sends, Edge Communications reached TLU SA's database at scale, with the 13 June release ("Farmers largely responsible for their own safety") achieving the strongest engagement of the campaign, a standout open rate for a cause-driven press release of this kind.

Public participation

The campaign successfully shifted from a passive awareness message to an active call to participate, with supporters registering on the campaign platform, sharing their own walks and runs under the campaign hashtags, and helping the story spread organically beyond TLU SA's own channels.

Positioning

Beyond the numbers, the campaign reinforced TLU SA's position as the authoritative, data-led voice on rural and farm safety in South Africa, anchoring every claim to the union's own case-number-verified statistics rather than anecdote, which strengthened the credibility of both the campaign and the union's ongoing advocacy work.

Conclusion

This campaign shows how a clear, symbolic concept, paired with disciplined bilingual media execution, can carry a difficult and politically sensitive subject to a wide audience without losing nuance or credibility. For TLU SA, Edge Communications delivered not just a single moment of visibility, but a repeatable campaign framework, built on real data and genuine public participation, that the union can continue to draw on in its ongoing push for rural safety to be treated as a national priority.