by Herman Manson (@marklives) Industry increasingly has to actively engage with an ever-wider array of stakeholders, but few ad agencies have the specialist knowledge to fully grasp the technical details and legislative responsibilities of corporations active in the mining, construction or engineering fields.
Russell Tandy (managing director: NGAGE) and his wife, Renay Tandy (director: public relations at NGAGE) identified a gap in the market in 2008, a year after setting up their own ad agency, NGAGE.
Marketing background
Russell had come from a marketing background at a software development specialist active in the mining industry. Renay was a trade journalist at Creamer Media (publishers of Engineering News & Mining Weekly), followed by a short stint as PR manager for Comair.
NGAGE started life as a PR agency but kept having to pitch against larger and much more established firms. The duo decided to focus on a core differentiator and an area in which both had specialist experience — industry.
They quickly started picking up industrial clients and, by 2012, had won a Gold PRISM 2012 Award for Best Small PR Consultancy as well as for Best PR Professional in Media Liaison. It was breakthrough for a four-person agency, and gave it the boost it needed to expand NGAGE’s services to include advertising. Award success continued into 2013, when it won a Gold PRISM 2013 Award for ‘Launch of a New Product’ (for the launch of the Hyundai R1200LC-9 Excavator).
Integrated
The agency has been focusing on becoming a truly integrated business and has expanded its skills base to include PR, advertising, marketing services, digital, social media, multimedia and investor relations.
NGAGE started life in the Tandy’s home but, by 2008, it had moved into its own offices — just as the global recession kicked up a gear, resulting in the loss of 60% of its client base. It forced the agency to engage with clients outside of its original focus area of mining, so was actually a blessing in disguise, according to Russell.
Today, the agency employs 35 people and clients include Bosch, international manufacturing and engineering company DCD Group, professional services firm SMEC, Afrox and 32 other industrials groups.
Moving towards greater engagement
Tandy says industrial groups are moving towards greater engagement with society, especially with the rise and amplification of social media. Even so, they tend to speak to smaller groups of people and face communication challenges as the trade press comes under increasing pressure (with respect to the decline of print).
The agency is forming partnerships with other specialist industrial agencies on the continent and expanding alongside clients; it already has partnerships in place in Nigeria and Tanzania.
Russell says he has found ad-industry associations closed off to the needs of smaller specialist agency issues — even agency accreditation is a difficult process. As NGAGE grows, so too will its engagement with the advertising community.
In the meantime, it continues to enlarge its offering while retaining specialist expertise to industrial clients.
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