by Herman Manson (@marklives) Bluegrass Digital is positioned as a digital production agency for ad agencies. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the agency isn’t trying to break into a through-the-line positioning. Instead, it focuses on what it believes it does best – implementation and high quality digital production.
Born in the late 90’s as a hardware and networking company it evolved into a digital production agency and by 1999 had an office in London to 
take advantage of an outsourcing model that saw work done in South Africa, where labour was less expensive than in the UK, and a client facing team operating in London.
Nick Durrant, MD at Bluegrass Digital had joined his brother James, the founding partner of the business, to run the UK operation after four years in the world of banking. His focus was targeting agencies with skill, capacity or even budget constraints and convincing them that South Africa could produce and implement digital solutions in a cost effective and efficient way.
Durrant says around 72% of business still comes from the UK, where James still manage client relationships, even though it no longer runs a client management team at that office.
Thanks to a roster of clients that have included Société Générale, Shell, Dunlop, Honda, Unilever, Britax and a range of Diageo brands, the agency has been picking up direct clients, but its core focus remains working on projects on behalf of other agencies, including some very well known South African digital outfits.
The business suffered a major setback in 2001 with the first .com bomb which saw it scale back operations in the UK, but which strengthened its cost-saving outsourcing proposition in the UK market. The 2009 global recession following the financial crisis in the US and Europe also hit the business as agency budgets were slashed.
Durrant (Nick) returned to South Africa in 2010 to run the business from Cape Town. He says a lack of digital skills in some South African agencies offers Bluegrass an opportunity to grow its marketshare here.
It recently built an Facebook app for Europcar through King James, an iPad app for Kalahari.com, a website for Converse (with DDB) and it was recently commissioned to build a new internal marketing platform for Monster Energy.
Durrant sees various opportunities in the medium sized business sector and also says that digital spend in South Africa has lots of scope for growth.
The company has been putting out feelers into other African markets and has done some work (alongside local agencies) in Lagos, where the digital market is still in its infancy, says Durrant.
Bluegrass Digital currently employs a team of 22, mainly in Cape Town, and the value of its SA based work is steadily increasing. Durrant foresees that the business might well be sold in the next four to five years, possibly to international digital production specialists wanting a strong base on the continent or a local firm wanting access to a strong production team.
Bluegrass Digital Show-reel 2013
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