28 November 2008
	PROFILES NET#work BBDO

Type of agency - Advertising Ownership - 60% BBDO Worldwide; 40% local Key person - Abdulla Miya New business - R130m Accounts gained - 7 Accounts lost - 1 Total clients - 13 Number of staff - 110 Equity - 36% Biggest client - Cell C We’d better say good things about Net#work, now that it has won the advertising account for BDFM Publishers, which includes the FM. In fact, it’s impossible not to be positive. It was the top-ranked agency at last year’s Loeries and it received the same SA ranking in the 2007 international Gunn Report. It won a gold Apex and marketing excellence award for its Nedbank brand repositioning, and contributed to groundbreaking work on 5FM’s Youngblood campaign. Will the agency ever disappoint? So far, there’s no sign that the departure to Cape Town of founders Mike Schalit and Keith Shipley has had a tangible effect. New accounts last year were Mercedes-Benz, Europcar, Gillette, Hewlett-Packard, CC Africa, Havaiannas and BDFM — contributing a combined R130m in new business. The only loss was the R2m Automobile Association account. The biggest accounts, after Cell C, are Nedbank, SABC, Simba and Chicken Licken.