Big thinking lies behind new Cape Town agency Derrick, which hopes to combine business sustainability with environmental friendliness, a collaborative approach to communication and media neutrality. It has been launched by Livio Tronchin (ex-Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town), Mark Stead (former CD at KingJames RSVP) and Myles Hoppé (former brand manager at the company designing SA’s first electric car, the Joule).
Its laid-back style requires first-time visitors to squeeze Livio’s cock (a plastic rooster that crows, thankfully), before exiting the trio’s studio office at the Old Castle Brewery in Woodstock. It’s all quite refreshing.
Like most agency entrepreneurs, the guys at Derrick wanted to escape the siloed thinking still prevalent in many ad agencies and marketing departments. Tired of endless meetings, of having to spend a clients’ budget before year-end simply for the sake of it, and had lost enthusiasm for what they were doing, says Hoppé. Derrick sees a return to their passion for advertising as it should be rather than as it is.
Big-agency systems stem from a bygone era, the Derrick founders believe. Ad agencies no longer lead, they follow, says Tronchin, putting the agency business model and relevance in doubt.
Change will be driven by a strategic consulting model that blurs the line between agency and client, says Tronchin. Research should be play a foremost role in crafting communication, not kick in after the strategy has already been completed and placed in production, as often happens.
The agency has already won pitches for the City Of Cape Town’s Electricity Savings Campaign, Oakley South Africa and Act II Popcorn, though Stead concedes the biggest challenge has been getting into the room with marketers. The first viral ad for the electricity campaign saw the implosion of the Athlone cooling towers rewinding to make it appear that the towers are being reconstructed rather than destroyed. Dozens more then dot the landscape to bring the point home that wasting electricity has a real-world effect on their environment.
It’s all part of hitting the reset button on how clients and agencies approach communication and client/agency relationships. Derrick sees a sustainable future, for its own business, that of its clients and ultimately the planet. It’s big thinking from a small team.
Find the City Of Cape Town’s Electricity Savings Campaign at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyN8oCgyN8Q
First published on Squeezeback
Comments are closed.