By Carey Finn. Paul Middleton, director of Ebony+Ivory, reflects on 45 years (and counting) at the agency.
The young Paul Middleton wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he gradually discovered what he didn’t want to do. As he scratched various ideas off his list, the pull of media became stronger — it had always been there. “I had the rare privilege of learning from an advertising trailblazer”, he says. “My dad was a local icon and internationally awarded in a time when South African recognition was incredibly low. Agency is in my blood.”
Indeed, Paul Middleton Sr had opened Ebony+Ivory, originally known as Paul Middleton Advertising, in 1969, making it the oldest independent specialist services agency in the country. After a brief stint as a game ranger, Middleton Jr started working at the agency himself, in late 1980. Twelve long years later, during which he worked on everything from reception to post, typesetting, accounting, and media, he was able to buy the business, renaming it in the process.
“What sparked my interest was how to get these incredible messages to the right audience in the media that reaches them and creates the connection we aim to achieve,” says Middleton. “My passion lies in the media – and what a journey that’s been. Media has evolved so much over the last 45 years, and it just gets better, more exciting, and more complex.”
Nearly 60 years of success
Ebony+Ivory today reports billings in the range of R80m-R100m, with 25 full-time staff, and 10 partners. The agency is a B-BBEE Level 1, 51% black, female-owned business, having partnered with Lwazi Capital in 2019 and welcomed Nombini Mehlomakulu to the fold as managing director. Major clients include Brand South Africa, Volkswagen Financial Services, InvestSA, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and Sasria.
“Our media-buying is also significant for many small clients,” says Middleton. “From a small start-up, we have grown and evolved, but we’ve remained a small agency by design. My dad’s approach and pay-off line, which we’ve recently reinstated because it really is our ethos, is ‘big enough to do it all, small enough to care’.”
Middleton says that as a family-owned business, the agency has always been owner-led and managed. “The owners are still the leaders and managers, because that is where commitment, focus and strong knowledge base lives to deliver the best to our clients,” he says. “It’s our business to help their businesses grow. We take that seriously.”
The “one-stop shop”, plus great creative ideas
Middleton believes the most significant industry trend at the moment is the move back to a “one-stop shop” approach. “This has been a massive issue for clients in trying to manage multiple agencies who don’t always talk to each other in an integrated way, which negatively impacts outcomes,” he notes. “One single agency, with the specialist skills, is definitely back — and we are happy to have retained this as a key approach for the last almost 55 years.”
Middleton also flags an opportunity that is “rising hard and fast again”: focusing on a great campaignable idea that resonates as a key brand driver, rather than performance metrics as the driver of creative ad output. “It doesn’t work for long-term brand building,” he says. “Not that it doesn’t have a place, it’s just not the only place that should exist to the detriment of a great idea.”
Investing in the industry
“If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be that you reap what you sow,” says Middleton, referring to his involvement in industry bodies over the years. An agency gets back what it puts in, he says, and that needs to be more than mere fees. Middleton has served on a number of boards throughout his career, including the ACA, AMF, ABC, ARB, and MRF, and supports others including the PRC, BRC, IAB, MASA, AMASA, and PRISA. “It’s not about me, it’s about the agency,” he says.
Ebony + Ivory also has a strong focus on internships, with roughly one to four young graduates interning at the agency each year. “Generally, we hold onto the good ones, so there is always a good number of young people in the agency,” says Middleton. The agency also ran the Hlumani Empowerment Trust, “a collaborative workspace to find and fast-track new talent”, for several years until “Covid put a spanner in the works”; Middleton says the agency is looking at bringing it back in the future.
The current environment is a challenging one, Middleton admits, one of the worst he has seen in his career, with pitches taking a long time to award. “Everyone seems to be sitting on the fence,” he says. “Trump, Gaza, Ukraine and the Government of National Unity seem to be causing uncertainty. I can feel it loosening up, but it’s tough. So much uncertainty. So much competition. Clients who are shopping for a quick fix and the lowest price — but you get what you pay for.”
In spite of industry anxieties, however, Middleton remains positive and passionate about media. “We can’t ignore the global context, not just economically but socially,” he says. “I think it’s a wave that will hit us, but I don’t necessarily think it’ll be bad — rather a wave, a change that we ride and rise from.”
Carey Finn is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.com.
