By Charles Lee Mathews. This move follows the launch of RAPT Commerce, a bold new partnership positioned as the informal markets’ answer to Shoprite’s Rainmaker Media.
With all the talk about how agency models need to evolve, when’s the right time to act? For RAPT Group, the answer is now. With a strategic stake in The Real Network, a tech-powered production and streaming company co-founded by Gareth Cliff and Rina Broomberg, the agency doubles down on market disruption. This deal brings Cliff into RAPT’s holding company, while The Real Network remains an independent entity.
“I made a personal investment into The Real Network in February 2024. At the time it used to be known as Cliff Central,” Garreth van Vuuren, RAPT’s group CEO and founder tells MarkLives MEDIA in an exclusive interview. In March 2024, Cliff Central rebranded as The Real Network.
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New media production house
“The Real Network will run as an independent business with its own profit and loss centre because we don’t see it as an ad agency. We see it as a media tech and innovation hub,” van Vuuren explained. He added that as the company is now fully owned by RAPT, it will operate as RAPT’s production house.
“Through The Real Network, [we have] developed the technology and ability to offer services such as digital ad insertion technology, which Whisper Media does and has been offering in SA. This creates competition to Whisper Media, hopefully driving prices down and opening the door to others,” van Vuuren said.
“Our work with The Real Network is a game changer. Gareth Cliff is an innovator and a boundary pusher. His business partner, Rina Broomberg, is a media stalwart. She wanted to slow down her career and opened the door for Gareth and I to work together,” he notes.
“We started thinking about how to innovate the brand and bring things to life. Gareth and I had bought a lot of equipment and began experimenting with things,” alongside a technology team, says van Vuuren.
The Real Network’s podcasts include The Gareth Cliff Show, On The Bounce, a sports show, and Let’s Talk Man, focusing on men’s health. In March 2024, after transitioning to The Real Network, the tech media company launched The Shady PHodcast with celebrated DJs Warras and PH. All shows are streamed on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
“Gareth and I moved all the podcasts into a studio, which was green-screened with multi-cams. Do you know how long it takes to render out three cameras on a green screen and edit it?” van Vuuren asked. The answer: too long.
Tapping into Unreal Engine
“Fortunately, one of the guys on our team asked, ‘Have you heard about Unreal Engine?’” van Vuuren recalls. “By that stage, we’d melted through three computers and spent a lot of money with major zeros on equipment. There are not even any YouTube videos that can help with this kind of experimentation,” he jokes.
Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games, is a 3D game engine that has transformed gaming and media production. Originally for video games, it’s now widely used by broadcasters and filmmakers. Jon Favreau used it for The Mandalorian, and it’s also behind HBO’s series, Westworld.
On the gaming front, Unreal Engine played a big part in Fortnite’s success, helping it make $4.4 billion and boosting Epic Games’ value to $32 billion. With over seven million users worldwide, it’s used in industries like car manufacturing, architecture, and pharmaceuticals.
“The breakthrough was when we did our first live-streamed podcast using Unreal Engine, which involved no keying or rendering of a green screen. This means we can do shoots to launch a global brand on every rooftop in every country, and we can shoot it in our studio in a day,” says van Vuuren. “And the cost efficiencies are off the chain. The liabilities are less. The ability to switch on and record again is insane,” he says.
“If, for instance, a global water company wants to shoot a campaign at the source of its bottling and it is nine in the morning, it is possible to get that done and out globally by three in the afternoon,” van Vuuren claims.
“So, RAPT is a TV production house now, too. Sometimes just following the fun and embracing the technology can take you to innovative places without thinking too hard. But we’ve got a lot of smart, experienced people working on The Real Network. The production facility has yet to launch and is in such demand that we’re building a second studio,” he says.
SABC partnership and retail media play
The Real Network has partnered with the SABC on two shows, with a third in negotiation at the time of writing. “We’ve submitted productions shot in The Real Network Studios, two of which have been approved so far. One is a sports show and the other is a music, lifestyle and entertainment show. RAPT Creative has been appointed the lead through-the-line agency for the SABC,” he says.
He adds, “We are finalising contracting to deploy our first brand campaigns for the public broadcaster in early December. We have another state-of-the-art virtual production facility using LED coming online in November due to the high demand,” van Vuuren says.
Alongside RAPT’s media innovation, which also saw the hiring of Wayne Wilson, a former COO of Ad Dynamo for over a decade, as the chief operating officer for media and tech at RAPT Group, is its disruptive retail play. Through RAPT Commerce, in partnership with FinTech company Akelo Group and Retail Engage, the advertising holding company targets South Africa’s lucrative informal and emerging retail markets.
This partnership provides real-time insights from over 2.5 million consumers registered on the Bonsella loyalty programme, which is growing by hundreds of thousands each month. Van Vuuren expects the programme to reach ten million members. The network already connects with some 150,000 independent merchants.
South Africa’s informal economy is valued at R900 billion, with the informal sector accounting for R180 billion. This economy is expanding rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of 6.7%.
RAPT Creative debuted in SCOPEN’s 2023/24 Agency Scope South Africa, ranking 4th on the Agency Performance Table and achieving first-place results in four categories. Johanna McDowell, SCOPEN partner described RAPT’s performance as “stellar”. RAPT’s media and commerce plays put the agency, which recently billed R120 million for the past year into a market worth billions.
Media and tech at centre of agency
At a time when there’s a shift to independent advertising agencies globally and price has become a big factor in agency selection, RAPT has reformed as an indy disruptor that is hoping to fix adland’s broken business model.
It also comes at a cost advantage. With the right media investment, RAPT will offer free creative. “If there’s a certain overall media spend with us, we start to ratio an output-based model, plus 20% of industry standard on top of that, in terms of a free creative output,” van Vuuren says.
The team at RAPT has read the industry and is gearing up to offer a solution many marketers are increasingly demanding: agencies that can bridge silos and marketing disciplines, and that get creative, media and strategy together to see the big picture.
The offer: outcomes that drive commerce, brand salience, and loyalty, and reach for consumer brands that want in on the informal economy.
Charles Lee Mathews is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.com, as well as co-founder of The Writers, a writing consultancy.
