by Kim Penstone. Jerome Cohen is placing his bets on experiences — real things that happen to real people in real time. “The future of the TV ad lies in the creation of an experience, what some people would call a stunt,” says the founder and MD of OffLimit Communications, now known as OLC.
What he’s talking about is something that transforms the consumer from a spectator into an active participant, something that puts the consumer at the heart of the communication.
Once upon a time, brand stunts were expensive because they could only experienced by the very few, but the advent of social media and the consumer compulsion to share has meant that, if filmed, and properly packaged and managed, these stunts can be taken out of the confines of the physical world and projected into the virtual world, where they may be watched, shared and experienced again and again, by a limitless number of consumers.
Buying beliefs
This is the area in which OLC is now focused: crashing into worlds and lives, interrupting the ordinary and designing ‘never-been-done-before’ experiences that transform consumers into believers. Because consumers don’t buy products; they buy beliefs.
“Currently, 80% of what we do is ‘activation’-based; it’s our bread and butter. Only 20% is that ‘experiential’ piece, the creation of a stunt,” he explains. But, given the company’s proven ability to evolve with the times, there is no doubt that OLC will soon flip this particular 80/20 split around.
Launched just over a decade ago, in 2005, OLC exploded onto the local advertising scene with the launch of SAB’s 5FM Miller Mansion. It brought the flash mob to life in South Africa for Nando’s. And, in 2010, with the win of the hotly-contested Coca-Cola account, the industry started sitting up and taking note.
Since its inception, OLC has been responsible for some of SA’s most-recognisable and -memorable experiential properties: the Camel Experience, Cafe Peroni, the iconic Coca-Cola Rainbow and the unique South African expression of Share a Coke, which used a voice-activated vending machine to enable those of us with less-common names to print their name on Coke can. More recently, it brought some much-needed awareness to the McDonald’s Happy Socks campaign that supports families with sick children, and successfully brought five African countries together in one night to find the Ballantine’s Beat of Africa.
In a period in which the majority of the traditional advertising world has felt the economic pinch, and is anticipating more of the same, OLC is growing from strength to strength. In 2016, the company doubled its turnover, taking it into the R100m category, and according to Cohen, 2017 is looking to be the business’s best year yet — having won every single pitch in which it has participated since January!
Secret to success
What is the company’s secret to success? Reinvention.
“Statistically, 80% of businesses fail after the first 10 years,” says Cohen. “If you want to stay in business, you have to stay relevant. You have to stay at the forefront of change. You have to anticipate and innovate. And constantly evolve.”
OLC has what it calls a “horizontal strategy”. Over the years, the company has evolved from what was once a pure production company to an activation agency, and now a through-the-line agency with a variety of focused divisions, including strategy, multimedia, digital, social, PR and brand collateral. Most recently, it added a brand ambassador agency, and even an “asset rental division”, which allows the company to rent out its bespoke activation equipment, such as the OLCaptura, which enables on-the-spot social sharing.
There seems to be a simple symmetry to this success.
At the top of their game
OLC keeps its clients at the top of their game by creating new and innovative properties that they can own and grow; yet it recognises that, in order to stay at the top of its own game, it must do the same thing for itself. Constant reinvention. Living in the next. Bringing tomorrow’s ideas to today.
There was a time when creating a ‘stunt’ was viewed with disdain, because it was a once-off event, something that came and went and disappeared in the proverbial puff of smoke. But what if you could catch that smoke?
Now that’s the TV ad of the future, says Cohen.
Kim Penstone is a freelance journalist, specialising in marketing, media and advertising. Over the past 15 years, she has worked for a variety of leading marketing industry publications, including Marketing Mix, Marketingweb and Brand Magazine, and in her freelance capacity contributes regularly to specialist titles, such as Brands & Branding, AdFocus and MarkLives. She has recently started a blog, www.runlikeamom.co.za, which is completely unrelated to the marketing industry.
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