The Media Online’s weekly round up of moves in media. Allan Gray moves to King James the Second. GREY Africa appoints Stuart Walsh as chief strategic officer. M&C Saatchi PLC acquires Levergy Agency. Bankmed chooses New Media as content partner. Intact Software Distribution expands into Africa. New look for TimesLIVE. Hogan Lovells makes its mark. SPARK Media’s clients have heart and talent. OLX releases significant upgrade to become the safest classifieds platform in South Africa.
This week’s BIG move: Allan Gray moves to King James the Second
King James the Second (II) has been appointed as Allan Gray’s new advertising agency partner.
No stranger to the broader King James Group, Allan Gray initially met with King James II back in 2014 when the business went out to pitch. With full confidence in the regional leadership team, they have taken the decision to move the account to the Johannesburg-based operation.
“We are thrilled to partner with an agency that shares the culture and creative ethos of the original King James and is led by people with a sterling reputation and a track record of producing great advertising,” says Henk Pieterse, head of marketing at Allan Gray.
“We are incredibly excited to be taking on this iconic brand and we are really looking forward to the challenge of taking this brand into the future. We can’t wait to get going,” comments Rob Mc Lennan, creative founding partner at King James II.
King James Cape Town will continue to handle the Sanlam business and through fully transparent upfront discussions with key stakeholders, the partners have agreed to ring-fence the two regional offices to enable both pieces of business to be run independently from each city.
People moves
GREY Africa appoints Stuart Walsh as chief strategic officer
Stuart Walsh, has been appointed chief strategic officer at GREY Africa. He brings with him 20 years of experience at many of the industry’s leading agencies and on numerous bluechip accounts, first as a copywriter and creative director and latterly, as a strategist. He also has the rare distinction of having won global awards for his creative work as well as effectiveness awards for his strategies.
After switching from creative to strategy, he has built a reputation for himself as a no-nonsense planner with an almost-fanatical dedication to rigour and evidence and an aversion to buzzwords and jargon. But he also manages to bring an element of creative flair to the process to help inspire great work. In fact, creativity is something he insists on from all strategic planning and attributes this to the empathy he has for creatives, having been on the receiving end of more than his fair share of bad briefs as a creative. It’s an approach that’s led to work that’s become part of South African culture, from FNB’s ‘Steve’ campaign to, more recently, MTN’s Nightshift commercial.
“We’re really excited to have Stuart on our team. He epitomises GREY’s philosophy of famously effective work with his unique blend of experience in creative and strategic thinking. We also look forward to Stuart driving the strategic agenda at the various GREY offices in Sub Saharan Africa.” says Paul Jackson, CEO at GREY Africa.
Business moves
M&C Saatchi PLC acquires Levergy Agency
M&C Saatchi PLC has announced a majority stake acquisition of South African sports and entertainment agency, Levergy. The deal comes off the back of an exceptional growth path for Levergy, which was founded by Clint Paterson and Struan Campbell in September 2012, and positions the agency to capitalise on a buoyant sport and entertainment industry in South Africa and across the African continent.
The deal brings together two best-in-class agencies in the sport and entertainment sector. M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment is the record five-time UK Agency of the Year as voted by the BT Sport Industry Awards, whilst Levergy recently took home nine awards, including Agency of the Year, in the Discovery Sport Industry Awards held recently in Johannesburg .
Levergy are to become the offering in Africa of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, furthering their existing network in London, Berlin, Sydney, New York and the most recently launched office in Los Angeles. Levergy, whose client roster includes major local and international brands such as SuperSport, Audi, New Balance and DStv, employs 26 staff across South Africa with offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Bankmed chooses New Media as content partner
Bankmed have appointed New Media Publishing to publish Bankmed Bounce magazine. After a competitive pitch process New Media have been awarded the business and will be producing two printed magazines per annum, with a print run of over 115 000 copies, as well as ongoing digital content for Bankmed’s various digital platforms. November will be the first issue published by New Media.
“The New Media team demonstrated an understanding of our scheme, our brand and our target market and we were particularly impressed with their creative pitch. We are excited to work with New Media as we expand and improve the overall content offering for our membership,” said Zubeir Shah, senior manager: communications for Bankmed.
“New Media’s strategy is to have the very best editorial talent creating the very best content in specialist focus areas. The addition of the well-established and extremely respected Bankmed brand to the stable bolsters our healthy lifestyle credentials and we’re delighted to be working with their team. As healthy-living becomes the new cool, we’re well positioned to develop even stronger skills and expertise in this area,” said Andrew Nunneley, Director: Content Strategy at New Media.
Intact Software Distribution expands into Africa
IT security software distributor, Intact Software Distribution, has opened a local office in Nairobi, Kenya, to better service its growing African reseller base. Intact Nairobi will provide its full range of security software solutions, as well as its service performance and expertise as an experienced and highly specialised solution provider.
Simon Campbell-Young, CEO of Intact, says this expansion into East Africa is part of the distributor’s ongoing growth strategy. “Kenya is a rich and exciting economy and is very much under-represented in terms of security tools and solutions.”
Making moves
New look for TimesLIVE
The TimesLIVE website, South Africa’s second-largest online news destination, with nearly four million readers a month, has introduced a sleek new design and performance enhancements that bring it in line with modern digital trends.
Among the improvements is that the new TimesLIVE is a fully responsive website that will adjust page layouts automatically to make articles easy to read on any mobile device. It has also been optimised for fast loading speeds and low data usage.
While fake news has become a problem on the internet, TimesLIVE’s technology includes the use of the secure HTTPS web publishing protocol to safeguard the website from third-party attacks and hijacking. This will protect readers from malware and guarantees that content originates from TimesLIVE’s trusted newsroom.
The new TimesLIVE has a renewed focus on multimedia, with a dedicated, user-friendly video page collecting the latest news, explainers and insightful features on South African and global issues. TimesLIVE will continue to offer the same quality reporting throughout the day, breaking the news with stories, analysis and opinion.
“South Africa is experiencing one of its most dramatic and important news chapters and the award-winning journalists of TimesLIVE and the Sunday Times are at the forefront of breaking these stories,” said Andrew Trench, group digital editor and editor of The Times. “Our new digital platforms provide a palette for excellent digital storytelling and we plan to push the boundaries of innovation that our new sites – and the technology that underpins them – will allow,” says Trench.
Sunday Times digital content free to read for a limited period
The Sunday Times website will continue to form part of the overall TimesLIVE website, with a new design to endorse its unique identity.
Although most Sunday Times articles are usually reserved for subscribers, all Sunday Times digital content will be free to read for a limited period allowing readers to fully explore the new website. To access Sunday Times articles, readers only need to register (quick and free) to proceed.
Hogan Lovells makes its mark
Global law firm Hogan Lovells identified Africa as part of its growth strategy, and it partnered with Boomtown to successfully make its mark on the continent.
Building measurement tactics into each touchpoint, Boomtown’s integrated communications strategy increased traffic to the Hogan Lovells Africa webpage by 79% and social media impressions increased by 225% during the launch month, with the Advertising Value Equivalent for traditional and online media providing material return on investment for the client.
The pan-African integrated communications campaign Boomtown created, centred around the headline, ‘Be a mountain, or lean on one’.
The rationale for the headline was the acknowledgement and knowledge that proverbs are very much part of the African culture, and are rooted in colloquial interactions and are highly significant.
“We took advantage of Hogan Lovells’ authenticity and straight talking manner to add weight to the headline,” explains Boomtown MD, Andrew MacKenzie. “And we addressed the stature of the target audience, acknowledging their contribution to Africa’s business successes. The campaign centered on the importance of partnership with a law firm that sets out to protect their accomplishments.
SPARK Media’s clients have heart and talent
SPARK Media’s clients, friends and partners proved, that apart from having great golfing, bowling and general knowledge skills at their You’ve Got Talent Games Day, that they also have unmeasured generosity, raising unexpected funds for SPARK Media’s sponsored children’s home, Hayani.
“The aim of the day was to interact with clients and agencies in an informal and fun way, to thank them for their ongoing support and to build relationships with new clients,” says Gill Randall, joint CEO of SPARK Media. “We wanted to include different elements on the day (golf, bowls and quiz) to ensure everyone would be included and the ‘you’ve got talent’ idea was born.”
Hosted at Bryanston Country Club, the various activities ended around the same time so that guests could socialise and network on the patio while enjoying a quick shoulder massage from Hands on Retreat. Prize giving and the raffle set the tone of the evening, with amazing prizes up for grabs that included TV’s, phones, soundbars and holidays. In true SPARK Media fashion, it didn’t stop there and after the three-course meal, the lights dimmed and the dance floor came to life!
As part of prize-giving SPARK Media raffled off prizes donated by Winchester Marketing, Philips and The Coffee Co for their CSI charity, Hayani. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank David Miller from Two Old Dogs, Piet Greyling our Caxton Group MD, Neil Mclean Hi Fi Corp and Tony van Blerk from Bradlows for going beyond the call and donating generously to our charity,” says Randall.
“Additionally, we would also like to thank Graceland, Hi Fi Corp, Makro, Health Spa’s, The Grill House, Ocean Basket, Ocean Eyewear, Powerade, Bryanston Country Club, Tsogo Sun, Busby, Energizer, Rovos Rail and Spar for generously donating all of the fantastic prizes.”
“If you weren’t there, you certainly missed out on a great afternoon filled with laughs and good company. We’ve had fantastic feedback from those that attended,” concludes Randall. “Who knows, this may just become an annual event where the winners will be required to defend their titles.”
OLX releases significant upgrade to become the safest classifieds platform in South Africa
OLX has reached a new level of innovation – their biggest update since the launch in 2012 – offering South African users an improved and secure online experience they can trust.
It’s an exciting news announcement not only for users, but also for the SA tech and business industries in terms of positive advancements and way-forward thinking.
