Strategic brand reputation consultancy Ebony+Ivory Integrated Advertising Agency is looking to get a foothold in the fast growing East Africa market in pursuit of growth.
Business Day spoke to MD Nombini Mehlomakulu on growth plans and other strategic objectives going into 2024 and beyond.
What is your growth strategy? Are you pursuing organic or acquisitive growth?
The company has until now grown organically. Our 53-year track record is testament that this has been beneficial for the company and its sustainability.
We have been fortunate enough to win new business and acquire new clients, meaning our Johannesburg office has grown substantially.
Last year we opened an office in Cape Town in response to client demands and taking opportunity of a market that was increasingly looking for our services.
Secondly, we are engaging our clients who would like us to “grow with them” as they expand their business across the continent.
We are in exciting discussions about this and we hope by the end of the 2024/25 financial year we will have opened up a thriving office in East Africa, we are looking at and assessing opportunities.
I must stress that this strategy is informed and premised on “growing and developing with our clients”.
We have been fortunate through our marketing initiatives to attract work from the Middle East and Europe — for these companies it is more cost effective for them to procure work in rand terms as opposed to their local currencies. It is important for us to manage our costs and remain competitive in our pricing
However, the economy and industry have changed so we need to adapt to changing client needs — two ago years we partnered and invested in digital and social media company Oryx+Crake. We are seeing the company stabilise and it’s been yielding the desired results.
I have been tasked by the board to look at other strategic partnerships in our sector. This will either be through an acquisition or a strategic partnership. It’s exciting times for us.
What is the company’s current market share and how do you plan to grow it?
We are a medium-sized agency; we service a combination of large and medium-sized clients. Our client list comprises of companies such as Brand South Africa, VW Financial Services, Gauteng Growth and Development Agency, Sasria, IDC, JSE, Profmed ... to name a few.
We are a sizeable player in the sector — our growth is coming organically as we develop with our clients. We have also won new pieces of business — Daybreak Farms, GeoScience and PwC to name a few.
We plan on opening a new office on the continent and of course we are on the lookout to expand — either through outright acquisitions or strategic partnerships in our sector.
What are some of the challenges facing the industry and how do you plan to mitigate against them?
In my opinion the biggest challenge facing the industry is ever-shrinking budgets — in the past two years a number of agencies our size have closed shop with large multinational agencies having shrunk both in size and what they are billing, resulting in consolidations.
We need to work as an industry and with our clients to develop a culture and understanding that our work is fundamental to the survival and sustainability of business. So it is important that companies continue to invest and take pride in marketing and communication.
Technology has also created space for barriers to entry having eased, but in essence they are not. To this end we are often invited to fix problems that were created by non-integrated individuals, thus costing clients more money than necessary.
What is the annual revenue of the company?
Quantifying the revenue for marketing and communications consulting agencies such as ours is a bit tricky. On face value if you take into account the production and media spend these give an abnormally high turnover.
If you look at our revenue since 2020, we have consistently grown year on year by 25%. This is testament that our clients trust us to deliver, that our service offering is on point and that we have an understanding of the clients’ unique requirements.
Importantly, we employ more than 30 people who enable us to deliver impeccable results for our clients, and partner with over 10 strategic entrepreneurs.
What campaign are you most proud of and what did you learn from it?
Oooh there are so many ... we have done some good work that we are proud of as a team. So, if I have to pick one it will be the Sasria brand campaign. Sasria is a cost-effective specialist risk insurance company, the only one in the country that covers strikes and riots.
We developed a campaign that is aimed at the general public, highlighting the unique services of the client. We develop a holistic campaign which includes TV, print, radio, social media and digital.
We ran this campaign and then when the July 2021 unrest happened in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the public had an understanding of who Sasria was and their role in restoring the insured.
We also learn a lot from each campaign. Its always so exciting to work on a TV advert; the technology has changed and it’s become quicker and more cost effective to produce big brand adverts. We are constantly evolving, which helps to highlight the importance of effective and efficient marketing and communication.
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