With the aim of creating ‘Value for All’ by harnessing technology, insight and creative thinking to identify and deliver value for its network, clients and media owners, Amplifi is the media innovation and investment arm of the Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN).
Since being appointed director of Amplifi South Africa, Celia Collins has been driving innovation, change and a restructuring, with the ultimate goal of creating a framework for the media agency of the future.
“I need to monetise every single cent that comes into this business and make the most out of it in terms of how we make money, how we deliver to clients, and how we change the agency for the better for the future,” is Collins’ starting point for the conversation.
Interconnected, complementary divisions
Six divisions have been created under Amplifi, all of which are interconnected and complement each other, working together to create a seamless service for clients, media owners and network partners by making the offering a lot more in-depth, with sustenance.
“Media agencies are being squeezed and there has to be a change within the model, and there has to be a change in how we make money, and that’s a process. And you can’t stop your media agencies running on how they use to run, it’s got to be a gradual change and it has to be brought to clients and have people working full time on the solution,” Collins adds.
Retraining of staff for the future is another ongoing development. Collins says one of the divisions is being completely automated in the next two years, and hence its current employees are being trained in order to slot them into another division.
Programmatic buying is another key focus area, with the agency embarking recently on its first out of home (OOH) project (with radio being eyed for 2020 and then television), as well as data and insights feedback for clients.
“The more we get automated, the more time we get to actually go and sell, the more time we have as media agencies to be more strategic and understand more media owners and their offering, and the more time we can find for solutions, instead of doing backend office, that takes up so much time,” she believes.
Finding the agency of the future
For Collins, an exciting challenge is working towards the agency of the future, something which she is very passionate about.
“The biggest change is ‘where to from here?’; looking at what media agencies are becoming and where you want them to go. We’ve got to have an open mind and not see things as threats, which people do, especially consultancies,” she says.
She is striving for Dentsu Aegis Network and herself to be innovators and first-starters, at the forefront of the agency of the future.
Follow Michael Bratt on Twitter @MichaelBratt8
