Ogilvy & Mather South Africa and Gloo Digital Design (Gloo) have joined forces after Kagiso Media sold its majority stake in the digital agency to O&M SA.
“The marketing communication landscape is shifting towards an integrated future, where digital is no longer a separate silo,” says Ogilvy & Mather SA chairman, Nunu Ntshingila-Njeke. “For us as a company, it radically changes how we deliver communications solutions to our clients in a world where platforms and channels have converged.
“Consumers across the continent are increasingly nimble in how they move between platforms, and it is critical that the solutions we offer our clients are scaled to capitalise on this effectively. This transaction will allow us to introduce our latest House of Dynamic Content offering effectively into the South African market,” said Ntshingila-Njeke.
Gloo, founded in 2005, has rapidly emerged as a top performing digital agency, specialising in the creation of campaign solutions for all sectors across the digital media space. It is South Africa’s most awarded digital agency for creative and effective work and was named the nation’s Digital Agency of the Year every year for the past seven year. O&M SA’s says Gloo will complement its “already strong digital offering, and will further enhance its group-wide digital skills base as the agency gears itself for the future landscape of marketing and communications”.
“A partnership between the leading communication agency group and the leading digital agency was very attractive, it represents the step-change required to build brands in a truly integrated way,” said Pete Case, founder and CEO of Gloo Digital Design. “With the fast increasing number of digitally enabled consumers and the need for all organisations to communicate with them holistically, we feel this transaction best places us to produce media agnostic solutions for our clients and their consumers – as well as pure play digital solutions where required. There is huge evidence to show that Gloo and Ogilvy are both ambitious, creative companies and we feel the culture fit is excellent.”
Operationally, the agreement will see Gloo’s founder and CEO Pete Case take up a central role in O&M SA as co-Chief Creative Officer. Other senior employees at Gloo Johannesburg will take up positions across the agency and its digital and CRM business, OgilvyOne Worldwide SA.
“As a creative communications agency, we have challenged our own conventions and are constantly repositioning ourselves against the competition. Although we have made tremendous strides in digitising our business in an industry that is rapidly changing, joining forces with Gloo states our ambition to take a leadership role into the new era of communication. We look forward to welcoming Gloo’s incredibly talented team and clients to our family,” said O&M SA CEO, Abey Mokgwatsane.
Subsequently, and on completion of the deal, O&M SA plans to physically absorb Gloo into its Johannesburg office and will form part of an internal technology and innovation hub to the 15 companies within the O&M SA Group. Gloo Cape Town however, will continue to operate as an independent and separate digital specialist, with the added resources of the groups’ international innovations lab to accelerate its focus on leading-edge technology and innovation.
IMAGE: (L to R) Pete Case, Founder and CEO of Gloo Digital Design, Nunu Ntshingila-Njeke, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather South Africa and Abey Mokgwatsane, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather South Africa
