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by Herman Manson (@marklives) The market, as well as the ad agency model, is open to challenge and change, says Haydn Townsend, CEO of Pangea Ultima, the agency he launched in September 2015 with creative partners James Cloete and Gareth Lessing.

The partners wanted to be part of something independent and entrepreneurial, says Townsend. All three have worked at major agencies: Townsend at The Jupiter Drawing Room and Ogilvy Johannesburg; Cloete at Net#work BBDO, The Jupiter Drawing Room, DraftFCB (now FCB) and 7DKS; and Lessing at Lowe Johannesburg and DDB, among others.

Pangea Ultima "P" logoWhere is the industry going?

The three of them say, like many agency people, that they’ve been asking themselves where the advertising industry is going. It’s reached a critical point where innovation is possible — essential — and where a new breed of agencies may help set it on a new path.

According to Townsend, the industry is suffering from disintermediation: clients are setting up their own shops or going directly to production houses, bypassing traditional agencies. Pangea Ultima wants to flip fragmentation on its head by focusing upon integration without sacrificing specialisation.

It puts Pangea Ultima at the centre as a strategic agency, the single interface with clients which then leverages relationships with specialist agencies to manage execution.

Named after its strategic play

The agency is named after its strategic play. Pangea Ultima references a possible future super-continent which may arise as continents merge once again. The trio believes that, as with the last super continent — Pangea — ad agencies used to house all their services under one roof. These were eventually split up as the industry became more siloed (the continents drifting apart). One day, the super-continent will be reconstituted — and so, too,  will the agency offering.

Pangea Ultima believes the client, big idea, strategy and creative will live in one space but that execution can be outsourced to specialists. In another analogy, the agency talks about itself as the Uber of advertising: owning the platform (client, strategy and creative) but not the cabs (execution). There is only one creative department and one client-facing agency. It removes the need for specialists to offer creative or strategy and allows them to focus upon execution.

Currently, the startup’s agency partners includes Blk Ops (activations and events); Ever (digital and social), 7DKS (branded content), Pristine Moods (event production), Kavod (3D design), GGI (public relations) and Moonchild (brand strategy). Pangea Ultima is also building a web-based platform through which it intends to crowdsource appropriate creatives to work on projects. Creatives will share remuneration; nobody will ever work for nothing, Townsend promises.

Pangea Ultima executive leadership
Pangea Ultima executive leadership (from left): Gareth Lessing (creative partner), James Cloete (creative partner) and Haydn Townsend (chairman and CEO).

Evolving model

The commercial model is evolving, too; currently Pangea Ultima offers its partner agencies its creative and strategic services. It’s jointly pitching with specialists in group and has won two pitches to date, both new brand launches. Current clients include Refreshhh (a carbonated soft-drink) and Nampak’s Bevcan.

The trio started strategising Pangea Ultima at the start of 2015, Townsend says, trying to find a disruptive agency model. Small- and medium-sized brands, particularly, are interested in this type of agency model, he’s been finding. Larger brands, he believes, will come on board as the model matures.

The hardest part of the pitch to clients have been selling the concept of an integrated agency made up of independent agencies. A common refrain is: “Who do we procure?” Selling integration is a challenge in itself; not all clients want to put all their communications eggs in one agency basket. Another challenge is that clients are uncomfortable paying for creatives they don’t see. Agencies have compensated for this by pushing large teams into client meetings (and billing their time, needless to say). But the world has moved on; creatives may sit anywhere in the world. Townsend says clients rarely see developers — they are judged by their output — and it’s a model he wants to pursue on the creative side as well.

Ultimate responsibility

Pangea Ultima takes ultimate responsibility for that output and client IP (it is also the one clients procure).

“The nose is off the ground,” says Townsend of the new agency, while acknowledging that it is early days yet. He believes Pangea Ultima will, having put forward something new and innovative, succeed in wining over early adopters. And, as the model and the agency proves itself, more will follow.

 

Herman Manson 2105Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com. He was the inaugural Vodacom Social Media Journalist of the Year in 2011 and has, over his 20-year-plus career, contributed to numerous journals and websites in South Africa and abroad, including AdVantage magazine, Men’s Health, Computer World and African Communications.

 

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Published by Herman Manson

MarkLives.com is edited by Herman Manson. Follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/marklives

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