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Not a boom, real growth

By Herman Manson (@marklives) The African continent isn’t quite the growth honeypot ad agencies had been hoping for. That said – it’s certainly a growth market. While it doesn’t match the growth rates in Asia or even Latin America, listed agency networks seem to have decided any growth is good growth given the state of especially their European operations. North Africa remains fragile – ZenithOptimedia forecast only 1% growth in ad revenue in the Middle East & North Africa as political turmoil post the Arab Spring continues to rock the region. The company expects 2%-3% annual growth from 2013 to 2015.

Growth in adspend globally is predicted by ZenithOptimedia to hit 4.1% in 2013 and 5.6% in 2015. South Africa will be one of the top ten contributors to that growth between 2012 and 2015.

South Africa in the South, Kenya in the East and either Nigeria or Ghana in the West of Africa generally gets the most buzz from agencies seeking investment in the region.

New ECD joins Draftfcb Johannesburg

Jonathan Deeb, currently Executive Creative Director at Havas Worldwide Johannesburg & Havas Worldwide Digital Johannesburg (the recently rebranded Euro RSCG Group), is to join Draftfcb Johannesburg as ECD from July 15 this year.

Behind the 76 MotherRussia and Morrisjones merger

by Herman Manson. In the short term the agency is focusing on bedding down the merger, says Nina Morris, to decide on focus areas, and then to look at the continent for further opportunities.

SA agency helps reverse milk category decline in Nigeria

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Here is a South African ad agency with just about its entire business sitting in Nigeria. Leftfield has some bragging rights for bagging (several jono swanepoeltimes) the advertising account of Nigerian dairy giant FrieslandCampina WAMCO – worth R100 million.

FrieslandCampina WAMCO (with its Peak and Three Crowns milk brands) is the Nigerian affiliate of dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina of The Netherlands (with an annual turnover of 9 Billion Euro).

Leftfield founder, Executive Creative and Strategic Director, Jonathan Swanepoel (or just Jono in the office), has had quite a storied career in ad land, including a stint in South East Asia where he joined Leo Burnett, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as ECD. It’s here where he helped the agency pick up the regional dairy account for Friesland Foods which saw it produce campaigns for markets in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia and helped it grow from 45 to 150 people in three years.

Swanepoel built his reputation in the emerging markets of Asia and when he returned to South Africa he launched Leftfield with the FrieslandCampina WAMCO business. He was surprised to have to fight for the business only six months later in a competitive pitch but managed to retain it. Leftfield recently again successfully defended the account – now worth a R100 million – beating several well established Lagos based agencies.

King James – the road less travelled

Fourteen years after its launch King James has emerged as South Africa’s most acclaimed independent ad agency. Growing organically, the agency has finally reached a tipping point to boost confidence, influence and revenues, even as it steers the challenges of offering a fully integrated, digitally adept service.

Global agency groups find growth in digital, emerging markets

Financial results for the first quarter of 2011 from some of the world’s largest ad agency networks are showing rapid growth in emerging markets. Increasingly, agency networks expect their future, and future profits, to be tied in with markets outside the US or Western Europe. The stars of the show? China and Latin America. Digital spend, also in emerging markets, is driving quite a bit of the growth as well.