Jupiter Cape Town goes for new cool with global, digital work

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Jupiter Drawing Room (Cape Town) has come off “two horrendous” years, admits agency head Kevan Aspoas. During that time, the agency lost two major accounts, namely Woolworths (which took its account to an in-house studio) and Sanlam (which left for MetropolitanRepublic, just to move again one year later in February 2014 to King James Group). “It knocked our psyche,” admits Aspoas.

Getting its mojo back

But he believes the agency is getting its mojo back. Loss of business is part of agency life; sometimes things go against you, but the wheel turns, and you’ll find yourself on the up again. For Aspoas, the times have offered an opportunity to assess if and why he wants to stay in the game.

Aspoas seems willing to see the agency through to better times. Having fallen from 170 people (before the Woolies loss) to 85, he will not fill the MD slot at the agency, recently vacated by Claire Cobbledick, but plans to steer the agency himself with the assistance of a beefed-up management team.

Aspoas, who stepped back from the day-to-day running of the agency a few years ago due to ill health, says he is “much better, thank you”. He’s just keen on getting back to the business of embracing problem solving for clients in an unsettled market. “I’m up for it as long as the work remains exciting,” he says.

Jupiter Cape Town was launched in 1994 by Aspoas and two partners, Ross Chowles and Joanne Thomas. It would later launch Black River FC in Johannesburg. Recently, the agency started its African expansion through the launch of Weathermen & Co in Namibia (more detail below).

Strong background in retail

The agency has a strong background in retail, having worked on Truworths, Woolworths, Foschini and Musica in the past. Retail, says Aspoas, is the best form of consumer research — sales tell you whether people have reacted with their wallet or not. So he is particularly excited about the work the agency is producing for Urban and Aca Joe in a market that has seen an influx of international brands.

To leverage the intense November–mid Jan retail season, Jupiter Cape Town produced wraparounds for both brands in Sunday newspapers — something that made an impact at a time when they could easily have been forgotten among competitor advertising.

For Urban, it also launched the now much lauded #UrbanSelfie campaign. Visitors to Urban stores could take a selfie of themselves wearing their pick of clothing items, post it on Facebook and Twitter, and get R100 towards its purchase. Over the course of three weeks (24 November – 15 December 2013), the campaign added 16 947 new fans to Urban’s Facebook page and generated 873 351 impressions. It produced 88 winners (selected and popular selfies received prizes). The Urban stores also scored — the average basket size of #urbanselfie customers in store was particularly high.

For Aca Joe, the agency created the “Show us how you #ACAJOE” campaign. Customers would post their #ACAJOE pics to Instagram, add the hashtag, and receive R100 towards their next Aca Joe purchase. Between 7 December and 13 December, the campaign added 34 786 fans to the Aca Joe Facebook page and generated 828 386 impressions. It resulted in over 300 online redemptions.

Both campaigns are pretty interesting and digi-savvy for what many still consider a ‘traditional agency’. “We’ve proven we can do this kind of work,” asserts Aspoas.

Friendly, colourful animation

For Budget Insurance, the agency decided to move away from the talking-heads-and-endorsement route still followed by many insurers, opting for friendly, colourful animation that aims to make the client’s message understandable to the average consumer.

The campaign launched in January and feedback has been positive, says Aspoas, who notes that, since every flighting of the client’s ad comes with another phone number, measuring call and conversion rates have been highly effective.

For Lucky Pet, a pet product from the folks who bring us Lucky Star, Jupiter Cape Town created another animated ‘mini-movie’, which is currently running on YouTube.

If it tests well, the client is prepared to take it onto TV.

The Jupiter Drawing Room (Cape Town) is also developing global guidelines for the Virgin corporate identity. It had previously done work on some of the local Virgin brands and, on the strength of that, was able to put itself forward on the global pitch, which it won.

The new CI guide will live online and covers all aspect of the Virgin business — from its entertainment brands through to Virgin Galactic and its aims to fly commercial flights into space.

The win also resulted in Virgin sending creative partners and employees from its subsidiaries around the world to Cape Town to engage with sensory experts, including Andrew Shoben (the creator of The Clockwork Forest); sound artist Sissel Tolaas (the founder of The Re_Search Lab for research on smell); Joel Gethin Lewis (the creator of ’24 Hour Music’ and ‘Hello Cube’), who led the workshop on sight; Marije Vogelzang (a developer of experimental restaurants and creator of food rituals); and Willem Boshoff (an artist who led the presentation on touch).

Windhoek is one of Jupiter Cape Town’s larger clients, with good traction in South Africa and Namibia — and a heartfelt wish to make an impact in other African markets as well.

The agency cleverly played up its status as an “Africa’s World-Class Beer” and scored a massive hit with an ad starring Ivorian footballer Didier Drogba.

Locally, the agency is preparing the brand for the day when legislation removes any number of marketing opportunities through its ‘Windhoek pure beer society’ initiative. It uses social media, events and retail spaces (both as bars and shebeens) to engage with consumers around their interest in beer. The aim is to build a database of beer lovers for Windhoek to engage with in future.

The agency is looking north as well, expanding beyond its South African base for the first time with the launch of Weathermen & Co in Namibia. It is a joint venture between Namibian holding company Ohlthaver & List Group and The Jupiter Drawing Room (Cape Town).

Ohlthaver & List Group owns Namibia Breweries Limited which in turn owns, manufactures and distributes beer-brand Windhoek; Jupiter Cape Town holds the Windhoek account in South Africa and Namibia. The new agency will service existing Ohlthaver & List Group brands, including Tafel Lager and Wernhil Park, as well chase new Namibian client wins.

As Windhoek expands into other markets, so too will the agency, it is hoped. Aspoas is keen on learning lessons in expansion into other African markets close to the border, rather than jumping straight into complex markets such as Nigeria. Angola is high on the wish list.

The agency also recently won SASKO (a bread brand of Pioneer Foods), for which it will handle all production for all above- and below-the-line work, and furniture and décor brand Weylandts in February. All of this is further proof that the agency is finally swinging out from tough times to new cool.

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