Tag archives: agency

EXCLUSIVE: Bidvest Media acquires Retroviral Digital Communications

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Bidvest Media has purchased a majority stake in Retroviral Digital Communications, its second acquisition in the media space — it owns a stake in integrated sports marketing and sponsorship agency, MSCSPORTS.

The Ad Contrarian: Agencies are selling clients the wrong kind of miracles

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) With the exceptions of pop music and fashion, there is probably no more trendy business than advertising. Every few years we invent a trendy new miracle and everyone immediately jumps on it. But selling the wrong kind of miracles is a very dangerous and short-sighted habit to adopt.

We’re living in the digital golden age. So, what are you doing about it?

We’re living in the digital golden age. So, what are you doing about it? by Fred Roed (@fred_roed) I have an unshakable belief that we’re living, right now, in one of the most crazy awesome times in human history. I believe that in 100 years from now, people will look back at the turn of the 21st century and say “Dayam, I wish I lived then!” – sorta like we do now thinking back to the 60’s, or the Enlightenment, or the industrial revolution, or the 80’s. Na, just kidding – the 80’s sucked.

Think about it. We’re living in a time where digital communication is changing everything. You know that right? Of course you do. The question really is, what are you doing about it?

So, running an agency, as I do, the question becomes even more critical. I’m at the forefront of all this stuff. We get updates daily, hourly, every minute, on new shit that’s getting done. Innovations, inventions, disruptions: these are the things that mark this amazing pocket of time called the digital age.

And what am I doing about it?

Radar – now within range

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Radar has had its offices in the midst of a construction site for just over a year. It’s an easy allegory to describe the agency, which has been working hard to reinvent itself following the departure of three of its four partners just over a year and a half ago.

In 2006, four friends (Baphumze Msengana, Tricia Snowball, Karen Meyer and Jason Ray) left Ogilvy to launch Under the Radar (UTR) a specialist below the line agency. They had, says Ray, the last of the four left at the agency, believed that it was time to launch a new kind of agency that backed away from its reliance on traditional media, and had been in advanced talks with WPP, through Ogilvy, to back them. They got as far as looking for premises, but final approval just never arrived, so they departed and set up on their own.

Ray, who was Head of New Business at Ogilvy before helping launch UTR, says he knew the start-up agency would be OK when Old Mutual gave him an access card to Mutual Park at his going away party. The agency had signed Old Mutual as one of its founding clients.

UTR would live by three core rules, still in place today, says Ray. They would only work with clients they liked, they would avoid communication layering so that the client would always deal with the most senior person on the job, and accessibility and a focus on quality time will mean real agility inside the agency.

Under the Radar had been just that, operating under the radar from most of the advertising and marketing industry, but this is set to change. Ray has bought out his three partners, amicably, he says (one is rejoining agency as a staff member), and has evolved its full service communications offering. The agency has been rebranded as Radar.

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