Topsy tops for Ogilvy

Written by David Furlonger on July 22, 2010 – 12:03 pm -

Selinah, the Aids patient filmed in a TV advertisement being rescued from the brink of death through the use of antiretrovirals, is not the only one to benefit from her remarkable experience.

The Topsy Foundation, founded in 2000 to help prevent the spread of HIV/Aids and alleviate its consequences, has enjoyed a fund-raising bonanza because of the advert. And it may also have healing powers for the SA advertising industry.

The advertisement, which shows Selinah transformed from skin-and-bones to robust health in 90 days, won ad agency Ogilvy Johannesburg a gold award at last month’s Cannes advertising festival.

It was SA’s first film gold in 11 years at what is considered the world’s top awards show. The previous gold, in 1999, was also won by Ogilvy, for an Eno ad.

Since then, SA agencies have won a raft of Cannes golds in radio, outdoor, direct marketing and other categories. But film is the highest-profile award. There has been no shortage of SA silvers and bronzes, but the decade-long failure to win the top prize was starting to tell. That’s probably why Ogilvy MD Julian Ribeiro says: “We have received a remarkable number of calls from other agencies, congratulating us on our gold.

“I hope our success will give everyone more confidence. Each year of not winning has made the industry hungrier.”

It is, perhaps, not surprising that Ogilvy should have broken the industry’s duck. Despite Ribeiro’s insistence that the agency does not deliberately seek awards — “they are a bonus, not an end in themselves” — it has enjoyed sustained success in recent years .
What particularly pleases Ribeiro is that Ogilvy’s award success is not just for “pretty-pretty” creative advertising.

The agency has been so successful at SA’s Apex effective-advertising awards — which honour campaigns proved to have had a positive impact on clients’ brands and sales — that it was asked to train other agencies on how to prepare entries and case studies. “We politely declined,” says Ribeiro.

Ogilvy has worked for 10 years with the Topsy Foundation, which has its office on the agency’s Johannesburg campus. “The main purpose of the Selinah film was to increase awareness of the Topsy Foundation and encourage more donations. It achieved both goals,” Ribeiro says.
His suggestion that the amassing of advertising awards is almost an accidental by-product of creativity doesn’t do justice to the amount of work that goes into ensuring the work gets noticed.

There have been times when the agency has been accused of over stepping the mark by producing “scam” campaigns specifically for the awards circuit.

But Ogilvy Johannesburg’s awards record clearly works in attracting business. It was Fifa’s official agency for the 2010 World Cup and it also represented clients, such as SA Breweries, in competition with official event sponsors.

Ribeiro says the agency produced World Cup advertising worth “hundreds of millions of rand ” in placement billings. It also devised the Diski dance.

Ogilvy’s World Cup activities produced an award even Ribeiro could not have foreseen: “There was a national competition for the best supporter of Bafana Bafana. We entered and won. Our prize is a Bafana shirt signed by Steven Pienaar.”


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