Last year's battle was billed as David vs Goliath, FoxP2 against Ogilvy Johannesburg, to be our ad agency of the year. And David won. Unlike the biblical story, however, Goliath was only stunned. He's back stronger than ever, and this time there's no-one to knock him down.Ogilvy Johannesburg is the AdFocus 2009 Advertising Agency of the Year. It previously won the award in 2006.
There was no hiding the disappointment among some of the Ogilvy crowd last year when their agency's name was not announced. MD Julian Ribeiro, however, took it on the chin. Today, he makes it clear that his idea of a great agency is one that maintains standards. "For us it's not a big guys versus the small guys type of thing. We believed we were the number one agency last year, but what is important is that you are there consistently."
FoxP2, it should be added, is showing that consistency, even if its performance this time was not quite as stellar as last year. It was once again among our finalists.
When I speak to Ribeiro, it is a few days after the Loeries advertising awards festival in Cape Town. He had confessed to nerves beforehand, amid concerns his agency might not repeat its 2008 success of 36 statues, including a gold and 10 silvers. The jury was still out after the first night of the awards. Not after the second. The agency might not have claimed the same number of awards as last year, but its name peppered the evening's announcements. When it was all over, the agency had the biggest prize of all - a Grand Prix for its "Young, Gifted and Black" mixed-media campaign. It was one of only four awarded during the festival.
Of course, awards alone don't signify success. The agency, among SA's biggest with about 370 staff, is financially sound. It reports that income grew 18% during the AdFocus review period, from July 2008 to June 2009. New accounts were worth nearly R400m in billings.
These included Dove soap, Coca-Cola, the ANC election campaign, BP, the Fifa Confederations Cup and World Cup, Cadbury, Dulux, Sun International and SA Breweries.
There were also some losses. The most significant, Old Mutual, happened just after our cut-off. The split, after 22 years and various creative accolades, caught most people by surprise. For most of that time the account had been handled by Ogilvy Cape Town, but it moved up-country after Old Mutual moved its head office there.
The official explanation for the break-up was that the insurer wanted to re-evaluate its market position and direction. But industry insiders were not convinced. They said the split was a result of a loss of synergy between the two. The loss was a shock, not just because of the length of the relationship but also because it defied one of the stable's strengths - its ability to keep clients for a long time.
When the account went to pitch, it was won by Draftfcb Johannesburg, one of the AdFocus finalists. Under Jerry Mpufane, this agency has continued to shine since John Dixon moved "upstairs" to run the SA group. Its Vodacom rugby advertising, particularly, has been outstanding. It also has an underestimated skill. A few weeks ago the agency all but swept the boards at the Pendorings, the Afrikaans advertising awards, taking over half the gold awards on offer.
TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris's return to the winners' circle received praise from around the judging table. This follows its stunning performance at Cannes and the Loeries, where it collected grands prix and other awards. Most of the success, however, came from the "Trillion Dollar" campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper.
There was a special mention for Joe Public, which early this year bought back its independence from Draftfcb. "To move from Draftfcb, which is a big agency, in these tough economic times and still manage to grow business by 30% in the middle of a recession, is truly amazing," says Odette Roper, who is CEO of the Association for Communication & Advertising. "This is a small agency that's struggling to re-establish itself as an independent. Yet it's grown from a base of almost zero and been able to retain most of its staff. It's done phenomenally well."
The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town was also a contender - as much for the continued excellence of its creative work as for the fact that, at a time when most other agencies in the Mother City have been forced to shed staff and cut budgets, it has been growing aggressively.
But back to Ogilvy Johannesburg. "I think they've had their ups and downs, just like any other agency, but these have not been radical," says independent marketing consultant Chris Moerdyk. AdFocus jury chair Yvonne Johnston says: "This year Ogilvy is simply head and shoulders above everyone else. The awards, the way it's handled the business, 18% income growth... it's phenomenal."
The agency's MD since 2006, Ribeiro likes to talk of "liberating" brands entrusted to the agency. The success of that strategy is plain to see. Besides the Loeries, the agency is top of the Ad of the Month charts for the first eight months of 2009, was recently a gold winner at the Pendorings, has collected numerous awards at international shows this year, and its TV commercials feature prominently on the Millward Brown list of ads best-liked by the viewing public. At last count, the agency had 23 in the top 100.
Ribeiro is also proud of the agency's success in the Apex awards, which measure campaigns' benefits to client sales and profits. This year Ogilvy Johannesburg collected two campaign golds - for the Coke Brrr campaign and KFC Shaking It Up.
Executive creative director Fran Luckin, one of the few women senior creatives in the country, took over from Gerry Human, one of SA's leading creatives, after he moved to London within the global Ogilvy network. Mentored by Human, she clearly absorbed the lessons. Ogilvy Johannesburg is rated tops in the global group's creative table.
The agency is a hub for black talent. Black creatives make up 30% of its studio. To improve its services, the agency has added specialist units across retail, shopper marketing, health care and digital.
Ribeiro says the agency's success is down to its ability to take "well-judged risk" and that it is "never guilty of the accusation of creativity for creativity's sake", or "placing inordinate importance on winning awards at the expense of the brand".
Despite these good intentions, earlier this year the agency was found to have entered ads into publications and submitted them for overseas awards without permission from the client. The ads - known in the industry as "scams" intended to win awards - were for MultiChoice's History Network TV channel. They won silver at the Clios and a finalist's position at The One Show.
Ogilvy insisted at the time the work had been approved, but acknowledged later it "had not gone through the full and proper approval process". The ads were withdrawn. More recently, the agency withdrew an award-winning Nike ad from the local Loeries. The issue was discussed at length by the AdFocus jury, but it was felt it did not detract from the excellence of the agency's overall performance.
Moerdyk says that what separates the good agencies from the great ones is that the latter "have the capacity to allow clients to trust their judgment". This is in addition to creative ingenuity and great timing. "You can see it. One has only to pick up a newspaper or drive around town and you can tell which clients listened to their agencies, and which ones didn't."
Ribeiro's plan for Ogilvy over the next five years is to continue its "single-minded focus on liberating the brands and the people entrusted to us". He says the strategy is clearly working. "We have a happy, stable client base; we're attracting great new brands; and we have a happy and exceptionally talented team of people."
Like the agency's founder David Ogilvy once said: "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." Judging from its track record, there's no doubt Ogilvy has an innate ability to do this.
