With a pat on the head, all is well again at Ogilvy

Last week it came to light that Ogilvy Johannesburg submitted ads created for EATN’s South African broadcast partner, Multichoice, to numerous trade publications and blogs as well as having entered it into numerous international ad awards in spite of it never receiving approval from client. In the meantime it has been awarded a silver Clio and was finalist at the One Show Awards en New York. One of the ads reportedly just ran in the latest issue of Migrate – the official Loerie Awards magazine.

In his original comment to MarkLives Graham Pfuhl, Marketing and Sales Director at Multichoice, stated that the campaign in question was in fact rejected outright by Multichoice, and confirmed “no History Channel ads can be published without the prior authorization of AETN.”

OwenKessel: do the right thing, kill those silos

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Own what you choose to be and be good at it. And do the right thing. With these two simple rules, Felix Kessel and Vaughan Owen set out five years ago to a build small but successful agency that tends to punch well above its weight. The Johannesburg based OwenKessel currently employs 40 people with revenue of R20 million and billings of R50 million. It holds the Business Day account as well as Amstel Lager, LG South Africa Consumer Electronics and Diageo Reserve amongst others.

The business launched after Kessel and Owen both left Ogilvy Johannesburg to go on their own. Kessel had been ECD at Ogilvy Brand Activation and Owen a Creative Director. Both were looking for something more entrepreneurial and wanted to shape a more honest agency environment.

They were tired of the continued perseverance of silos within the agency structure, in spite of most agencies preaching 360 vision, and a lack of media agnosticism that they believed held back effective communication. Kessel believes the people that write the TV ad should be involved in writing the Facebook campaign and insists they do at his agency.

Digital campaign lands Prestige Award at Pendorings

by Herman Manson. Ogilvy Johannesburg walked away with the highest accolade in Afrikaans language advertising, the Pendoring Prestige Award, for its digital driven campaign MK is… for Afrikaans music channel MK.

The History Channel issues cease and desist to bloggers

MarkLives received a cease and desist letter from AETN, parent company of The History Channel, demanding we remove advertising material for The History Channel from this site. For the record, the campaign in question was submitted by Multichoice agency Ogilvy Johannesburg, along with the information in the copy still below to MarkLives.com who published it in good faith.

Tom of Finlands heads down South…

Tom of Finland, one of the newest perfumes by Etat Libre d’Orange, is making its debut in South Africa. Ogilvy Johannesburg is the appointed agency. The Tom of Finland perfume pays tribute to the fetish artist of the same name notable for his stylized homoerotic art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture.

Second ANC TV ad released

Together with advertising agency Ogilvy Johannesburg, the ANC has produced four commercials (view the first one here) that talk to the positive changes ordinary South Africans have experienced since 1994, while acknowledging “there is much more to be done”. Once again Nelson Mandela is prominently mentioned at the beginning of the ad followed by a message from Zuma at the end.

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