28 November 2008
	BRANDING & DESIGN AGENCY OF THE YEAR - GRID Past, prescient, future By David Furlonger It's no joke . . . Grid is our branding winner again

We're a prescient lot at AdFocus. Last year when Grid won the branding and design category, we joked how welcome it was to find an SA power Grid that didn't break down. That was before Eskom started to drag the country back into the dark ages. So, no more sarcastic asides. Who knows what it might lead to next time? Instead, a straightforward statement: Grid Worldwide Branding & Design is once again the AdFocus Branding & Design Agency of the Year. Its success wasn't as clear-cut as in 2007, when it boasted a 266% increase in turnover, but it still won handsomely. The other finalists were Fine Healthcare, Gloo Digital Design, HKLM, Brand Union, Wunderman, Zanusi and Hot Dogz. The last of those was an interesting case. As its trading name - HDI Youth Marketeers - implies, it targets young consumers on behalf of clients. It's teamwork... Ashantha Armogam with her successful Grid colleagues That's not as tricky as some might think, says the company. "Urban youth have grown up in such a media-saturated environment that they have acquired sophisticated filtering systems that make... the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff pretty sophisticated." New accounts gained during the July 2007-June 2008 judging period included KFC, Milo and GlaxoSmithKline - all understandable, given they have products aimed at young consumers. Less predictable were the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and Eskom. However, since we've already promised no jokes about the latter, we'll make no comment. As one of the sector's smaller players, Fine Healthcare was a surprising finalist but a worthy one - even if it pushed its luck by nominating MD Mignon Botes and CEO Mandi Fine as the two most influential people in the SA advertising industry. The agency's clients are almost all health-care related - though it did branch out last year by signing up with Johannesburg-based lighting retailer Radiant Lighting. More familiar are companies such as Discovery Health, Reckitt Benckiser, Servier Laboratories and Batswadi Pharmaceuticals. Among the campaigns and products on which it has worked are Nurofen, Gaviscon, Johnson & Johnson's women's health project and Kimberley-Clarke's handwashing campaign. The agency picked up R15m in new business last year. Fine has collected accolades elsewhere. In August last year it earned an award from New York's Rx Club, which honours pharmaceutical advertising and promotion, and in November - again in New York - it was a finalist at The Global Awards for health-care communication. Zanusi Brand Solutions, 100% owned by black women, also had a good year, picking up new business worth R11m from clients as diverse as Airports Company of SA (Acsa), Premier Group, the Film & Publication Board, Thebe Investments and Liberty Life Properties. It also regained SABC-TV2's Dorp-To-Dorp national roadshow. From 2006 to 2007, billings grew 276% from R3,4m to R12,8m. HKLM has grown quickly in its five years of existence. Revenue grew from R45m to R66m last year - thanks to a slew of new contracts worth a combined R20,5m. They included Pearl Valley Golf Estates, Alexander Forbes, Holcim, Sandton Convention Centre, Hollard, Massmart and Kumba Iron Ore. Grid campaigns ... SA Tourism and (below) Virgin Mobile It was a frantic year of pitches: 45 in all, of which 25 were successful. Two of these were in Dubai, where the agency has an office. It also benefited from the 2007 launch of an above-the-line digital business component. That's a space where Gloo Digital Design is already an established leader. A look at the Loeries roll of honour shows the company is the favoured digital partner among many of SA's advertising and branding companies. Elsewhere in this AdFocus, Gloo creative director Pete Case outlines the changes being wrought by digital on advertising, branding and design. In the submission accompanying the completed questionnaire, he makes a compelling case that the sector should have its own specialist award in future. In the 2007-2008 period under review, Gloo won a grand prix and gold at the SA Design Indaba. Clients for which it won digital accounts included Allan Gray, Plascon, Spur, Telkom Media, Cell C, Woolworths and Virgin Money. The company says it won 29 of the 30 pitches it entered. What sets Brand Union apart from most other companies in this category is the number of new accounts across Africa: petroleum, insurance and banking in Nigeria; fast food in Egypt; diamond sorting in Botswana; tourism development in Morocco; and telecommunications in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Within SA, new clients included the SA Post Office and the Road Accident Fund. There was also the small matter of rebranding Brand Union itself. Until November last year it was Enterprise IG, part of the global group of that name. Wunderman, part of Young & Rubicam (Y&R) brands, had a quiet year by its standards but still picked up new business from Pick n Pay, Hollard and Barloworld Logistics. MD Fraser Lamb moved "upstairs" in January to become group CEO of Y&R Brands SA, and was succeeded by Debi Loftie-Eaton. And then there was Grid. If other branding and design companies were frantic in pitching for contracts, Grid was positively manic. Of the 52 pitches it entered, it won business from 41. New clients included Standard Bank, Sasol, Exclusive Books, Rand Water, the Proudly SA campaign, Liberty Health, Stanlib, the International Marketing Council, and even the advertising industry's Loeries advertising awards festival. The agency clearly believes it knows best: of the accounts it lost last year, one was resigned because the client was "difficult and unco-operative", and another because "both parties did not reach consensus". Results suggest clients should listen to the agency, in which Nathan Reddy holds 65% and MD Ashantha Armogam 26%. At last year's Loeries, which fell during the AdFocus adjudication period, Grid won two bronze Loeries, three silvers, a gold and a design grand prix for work on behalf of Lulu, a fresh-food concept store. It will be interesting to see if its lack of Loeries success in 2008 - the agency says work had not reached "an approved stage" - will count against it winning a hat-trick of AdFocus branding awards in 2009. The Lulu work also garnered SA's only design Lion - a bronze - at this year's Cannes advertising awards in June, the first time design has been a category at the annual event. Two other campaigns, for Virgin Mobile and a hair salon, were finalists. The biggest disappointment, according to Armogam, was the failure in December to win the official Fifa soccer World Cup poster pitch.