By Carey Finn. Integration and cautiously optimistic budgets — industry leaders tell us what stood out, and where things are going.
“There were many account moves — MTN, Unilever, Woolworths, Tiger Brands, and Nestle,” says Tanya Schreuder, CEO of Juno Media. “Pitch outcomes are never formulaic, and the size and scale of the business often determines the shortlist for an agency win. However, there always are industry surprises, like MTN moving back into an integrated agency offering for both creative and media.”
Unilever splitting the trend
“Interestingly, Unilever has split the account across various agencies (WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group, Havas, Publicis Groupe, and Dentsu),” comments Marvin Kgasoane, managing director at M&C Saatchi Connect. “The trend we have seen in the past is brands moving to get away from splitting accounts or portfolios; however, it seems Unilever has gone in the opposite direction. This could be due to certain markets choosing to utilise the ‘best/better’ agencies that can deliver insightful media recommendations for consumers. The difficulty that could arise is the sharing of information across the various markets, as each agency has their own formula to targeting and achieving results using their tools and or frameworks. It [will] be interesting to see how the relation between global groups fosters efficient results for Unilever in the next few years.”
What’s behind account moves?
“Based on our Agency Scope research, the main reason that clients change media agencies is because a contract has come to an end,” says Johanna McDowell, founder and CEO at Independent Agency Selection (IAS) and managing partner at SCOPEN Africa. “Initially, we found that quite surprising — that is, why did they not change if they were simply unhappy? The answer lies in the complexity of media, the contracts and guarantees that are required by the media owners, the risks of moving business and losing out on potential savings or worse, missing booking and material deadlines. Business continuity for marketers is of the utmost importance, and there can be slip-ups when one media agency takes over from another, unless these processes are very carefully, and independently, managed, preferably by experienced media auditors who will also be involved in the longer term and who will have audited on the way through the pitch process.”
McDowell notes that no major new brand players entered the South African market last year. “There were high expectations for Amazon, who have moved their media work to Group M,” she says. “However, we have not seen signs of any big media spends for the brand just yet.”
Not much movement expected from financial services in 2025
Zahn Rossouw, senior consultant at Yardstick and head of their Johannesburg office, comments on the financial service brands. “Media pitches tend to be cyclical, and during the past 18 months many of the large financial services players reviewed their media agency portfolios — the most notable being Old Mutual, Absa, Standard Bank, and MMH,” she explains. “Agencies are usually appointed for a period of three to five years, so we do not foresee much media activity amongst the large media investors in the next year or two.”
Integration is trending
“We are seeing marketers wanting to have their creative and media fully integrated — for both ATL and digital,” says McDowell. “This is very encouraging and a good indicator of a strong return to the bigger idea era of advertising. How this is manifesting is in the request for candidate agencies to be fully integrated so that there is one team that manages all creative and media inputs. Marketers therefore do not have to manage multiple agencies.”
“The trend of appointing full-service media agencies has continued,” agrees Rossouw. “However, we have also seen a slight shift to the appointment of performance-marketing agencies to augment the services provided by full-service media agencies.”
“The separation of creative and media agencies in the past led to inefficiencies, miscommunications, and increased costs,” adds Kgasoane. “What we have noticed is that clients are integrating these services more and more, which streamlines processes, reducing the burden on clients and improving the efficiency of their marketing budgets. This will continue as budgets have become tighter and tighter.”
Schreuder, too, expects more integrated creative and media pitches in the year ahead. “Clients/procurement will continue to look for efficiencies and savings, but we will see more emphasis on integration between media and creative agencies,” she says.
Budgets remain tight
“Budgets are not increasing,” says McDowell. “Media inflation is difficult to predict. Everyone is having to do more with less — including the media owners. How media spend is being directed is varied. Marketers are insisting on spending more on digital media, as they believe that this will produce better results for less spend — we are not so sure of that, and our global colleagues warn us that digital media is still a very unknown area, with hidden costs and uncertain results.” However, she does expect a gradual improvement in budgets in 2025.
Rossouw has similar thoughts. “Many marketers — especially those in the FMCG category — have felt the economic pinch, and marketing budgets have remained very tight as consumer spend remained constrained (many clients reduced media budgets),” she says. “Leading marketers seemed to have held back on investment until after the elections. Post-elections, there seems to be more optimism, and it is hoped that the two-pot system will release some cash into the market, which should have a positive impact on marketing spend.”
Tightening up the pitches themselves
The pitch process itself is under scrutiny. “There’s still too much vagueness in briefs,” says Gillian Rightford, managing director at Adtherapy and executive director of the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA). “Clients are still asking for too much unnecessary detail, and asking for pricing schedules that are almost impossible to create because of the lack of detail,” she explains. “The strategy component of pitches is also over-specced and under-valued, and to make it worse, the IP is often simply used without asking or payment. Pitches are time consuming and yet the lifeblood of any agency, so it’s essential these briefs are tightened up.”
Rightford, with her ACA hat on, says that ACA and MASA have created a joint task team to do a review on the code of conduct around pitches and tenders, “with the aim to make it a far fairer and more constructive process for agencies, and to ensure the marketers end up with the best-fit agency for their needs.” Revised codes and a masterclass series are expected soon, alongside discussions with the Government Communications and Information System (GCIS) about improving tender processes.
Carey Finn is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.com.