By Carey Finn. Ana Carrapichano, founder and CEO, reflects on the independent agency’s award-winning, nearly 20-year-long career.
“Let me start at the beginning, which is 19 years ago,” Ana Carrapichano, founder and CEO of Mediology, tells us. “When I started Mediology, what was missing for me in the industry was creative media thinking.” A firm believer in creative and media teams working side by side — “like they did before media houses broke away” — Carrapichano has always loved working with creatives “to find that magic”. This underpins the independent, integrated media agency’s tagline, “Where logic meets magic”.
Breakthrough as more than a buzzword
The tagline defines Mediology’s holistic approach. “Our strategic strength is that nothing leaves the agency without proper thought and strategic direction, and that has always been my philosophy,” says Carrapichano. “The
agency process always goes through our strategic flow, which is all the rigorous number-crunching that one needs to do in order to get to channel direction.” Throughout, she says, one should also be talking to the communication strategist and the creative team. “The magic is when we get to the actual channel plan, and we work closely with the media owners and the creative teams to come up with campaigns that break through,” she explains. “I know every agency uses the word ‘breakthrough’, but it’s not one that we use lightly.”
“Our machine works, and it works well,” says Carrapichano. Repeat clients, including Momentum Metropolitan Group (on the books since 2018), FlySafair (with them for a decade), and Bridgestone (12 years), are testament to this. So too are titles like FM Media Agency of the Year 2021, and the MarkLives Most Admired Media Agency of the Year 2021. “We’ve never really ‘aggressively’ looked for work, it’s always just come to us via word of mouth,” says Carrapichano. “We’ve grown from one person, organically, since 2006.”
Roots and routes
The decision to start Mediology was “driven by life”, says Carrapichano. After cutting her teeth at Saatchi & Saatchi with “awesome accounts” like British Airways, P&G, and Pepsi, she became media director at McCann-Erickson, working with L’Oréal, Unilever and Coca-Cola, joining the board before the age of 29.
Carrapichano’s next move saw her working on the launch of Zenith Optimedia as managing director — “a very interesting part of her career” — before she welcomed twins into the world. To strike a balance between income and family, she freelanced as a strategist. Then clients started asking her to keep their accounts — and soon, Mediology was born. “I thought, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” she reflects.
After winning her first big contract, Carrapichano employed her first staff member — and “the agency developed and developed”, she says. “Here we are today, all these years later, with over 40 people.” She estimates the staff count will be over 50 by the end of 2025 — “minimum”.
The agency today
Beyond previously mentioned clients, Mediology works with Nativa, Huletts, Xero, the IDC and Twinsaver. The agency reports a revenue band of between R30 mil. and R40 mil, and a B-BBEE Level 2 rating.
Carrapichano credits success to her management team, with her for over ten years. “That allows the company to run solidly,” she says. “In this industry you have a lot of movement — it is what it is — but at least if you’ve got your core team right, then the transitions are smoother.”
Despite “hard knocks along the years” including Covid, Mediology thrived through “stability and rigorous financial planning, and ensuring that we’re on top of the business at every level,” she says. Their “phenomenal culture” matters too. “We’ve put a lot of work into building our culture, since post-Covid when we all started going back to the office, and we truly have such a great vibe at the office,” she says. “That’s critical, because happy people are going to deliver awesome work, and are going to deliver growth naturally.”
More than just media
In 2023, Mediology decided “it was time to bring creative in-house”, opening a dedicated department and winning the Bridgestone Group account. They’ve grown creative opportunities organically — both within their client base, and by pitching new clients as a full-service agency.
Mediology has now positioned itself as a ‘Media-led Creative Agency.’ “While we remain rooted in our core media expertise, we are actively expanding our creative capabilities and steadily growing,” says Carrapichano. “Our ambition is clear — to grow our creative product and, in turn, expand our agency offering. This focus has already delivered results, with a 77% year-on-year growth in creative revenue. Our approach flips the traditional model. While creative agencies are integrating media, we have done the opposite — leading with media and embedding creativity. This shift is strategic: a media-led approach is a smarter, more accountable way forward. Clients are embracing the one-stop-shop advantage, where strategy, media, and creative work seamlessly together under one roof.
“We’ve invested heavily in our brand, our people, our culture, and our offerings, constantly pushing ourselves to deliver high-quality, strategic work,” she continues. “Being a media-led creative agency is not just a positioning, it’s a powerful evolution of what we do best. At Mediology, campaign excellence comes to life at the fusion of insight and imagination. Data and strategy provide precision, while creativity transforms ideas into compelling brand experiences. By blending logic with magic, we craft campaigns that don’t just reach audiences — they captivate, inspire, and drive lasting impact. This integrated approach ensures every campaign delivers not only on strategic goals but also on its ability to connect, engage, and resonate with people — delivering measurable results.”
A future focus includes award submissions for media, creative, and integrated campaigns. “It’s our own fault that we’ve been very bad at entering awards,” Carrapichano laughs.
Into Africa, and abroad
Mediology is in talks with “a couple of different groups that cover different markets”, says Carrapichano. “We’re taking Africa seriously, because many of our clients want to launch, or are active, in Africa,” she says. “So we’re developing our product there — taking Mediology through Africa.”
“We’re also very involved in social behavioural change [communication] work,” Carrapichano adds. “It’s work we’ve been doing for years – ever since Mediology launched, and prior to that.” Here, she is referring to campaigns around climate change, health, and gender-based violence, and “any communication campaign that’s going to change behaviour in order to save humanity and the planet”.
Carrapichano is on the secretariat and co-chair for the 2026 Social Behavioural Change Summit, led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. “It’s a major thing, because we’re the only company representing the private sector,” she explains. “What’s exciting for me is that the role media plays in social behavioural change communication is huge — and the work out there is phenomenal. But this industry does need professional skills like media agencies and creative agencies.” Because of this work too, she says, the agency is developing relationships with three major global networks. “These are joint ventures, relationships to branch into other markets where we may need them, and they need us,” she says.
“Finding a true strategist is hard”
“I think the biggest challenge that we face in South Africa — and have since I started in this industry — is skills,” says Carrapichano. “Finding a true strategist is hard. We love to home-grow our people, but when you win a substantial piece of business, you need to have senior resources onboard, and it’s particularly difficult.”
To address this, Mediology plans to launch the Mediology Academy in 2025. “This academy is twofold: it’s going to be educating junior people coming into the industry, or clients that really need to sharpen their media skills, to understand how to evaluate digital media in particular,” explains Carrapichano. “That is one part of it.”
“Once we’ve got it up and running, and it’s running as [well] as we want it to, we’ll open it up to the industry at large,” adds Carrapichano. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do; my background goes to training and lecturing at media schools for many years, and I sincerely believe that when you give back to the industry, in terms of skill set, the industry is going to benefit.”
Carey Finn is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.com.
