In a media landscape dominated by digital-first narratives, advertising is at risk of forgetting the power of integration. Blending traditional and digital channels is not nostalgic—it’s critical for genuine reach, credibility, and real impact. Unfortunately, that blend is becoming a fading art.

WHY INTEGRATION REMAINS VITAL

Wider Reach

Traditional media still commands massive audiences. The SABC’s television networks—SABC 1, 2, and 3—reach 89%, 91%, and 77% of the population respectively, while its 18 radio stations attract over 25 million weekly listeners. And, digital is surging too: South Africa now has nearly 44 million internet users, and mobile penetration reached 95% in 2019. Combining broadcast channels with digital enables us to leave no segment behind.

Enhanced Credibility

Traditional outlets offer established authority—deep storytelling and context. A TV drama or radio feature carries weight that social posts often don’t. At the same time, digital platforms provide real-time interaction and transparency. Together, they forge trust and credibility that neither could achieve alone.

Better Communication

Traditional media excel in narrative depth, while digital excels in immediacy and personalization. This combo allows campaigns to inform, engage, then move the audience through a journey—from awareness to emotion to action.

Public Opinion Influence

Leveraging traditional outlets to frame conversations and digital platforms to amplify them creates a more orchestrated and trusted voice. This duality is essential for guiding public sentiment—especially in a context as diverse as South Africa.

Optimized Customer Journeys

An integrated media mix builds a richer journey. A viewer might first encounter a brand on TV, dig deeper via social, click into the website, and finally convert. Each channel plays a role in driving that seamless progression.

WHY INTEGRATION IS BECOMING A LOST ART

Overfocus on Digital

Digital’s measurable ROI and agility have made it seductive. PwC data shows digital ad spend surpassed TV in South Africa in 2020 and is expected to reach two-thirds of total ad spend by 2027. However, this shift risks ignoring the foundational audience and storytelling power of traditional media.

Planning Deficits

Integrated strategy demands coordination. Yet, in many organisations, traditional and digital campaigns are planned in silos—undercutting synergy and effectiveness.

Team Silos

With digital and traditional teams often physically separated or differently structured, cross-collaboration becomes a rarity. This isolation stifles the creative flow fundamental to integration.

Eroding Traditional Skills

Skills like longform storytelling, broadcast pacing, and public trust-building—even as digital gains dominance—are being undervalued or lost altogether.

Changing Consumption Doesn’t Mean Abandoning Tradition

Even as digital usage grows, traditional media remain powerful. YouGov finds 58.5% of South Africans prefer TV for news, and 48.3% still rely on radio according to KLA. Abandoning these touchpoints forfeits massive reach.

A Balanced Path Is the Only Smart Path

Integration isn’t a nice to have—it’s the edge. It ensures reach isn’t just wide, but deep. It brings credibility and immediacy. It activates audiences with narrative power and keeps them with engagement and utility.

RESTORING INTEGRATION AS CRAFT

True integration is not only strategic—it’s craft. It’s blending deep-rooted media with nimble platforms to create campaigns that are culturally resonant, emotionally engaging, and operationally smart. It’s about treating channels as team players in a symphony rather than instruments competing for volume.

South African advertising stands at a crossroads. Digital alone is tempting and trackable. But the lasting impact lives where tradition and innovation meet—where messaging is credible, wide-reaching, and emotionally intelligent. The lost art of integration is worth mastering again—because that’s where real connection happens.

With over 56 years of media and advertising experience, we’ve perfected the art of blending traditional and digital so they work harder together. Few agencies can match the depth of our heritage or the agility of our approach – and that’s why our clients see results that last, not just clicks that fade.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Middleton is a Director and one of the owners of Ebony+Ivory, the longest standing independent, specialist services agency with the rare privilege of a track record that spans more than half a century and. Level 1 BEE rating. We have all the services of a traditional agency married neatly together with the digital age.  

Lessons from the Runway: What Advertising Can Learn from the Fashion Industry.

Fashion and advertising share DNA: they both shape culture, signal belonging, and seduce with ideas. But fashion has mastered reinvention and cultural relevance in ways advertising needs to learn from.

Walk into a fashion week runway show and you’ll notice something immediately: fashion doesn’t just sell clothes. It sells a point of view, a feeling, a world you want to step into. Every detail — from the lighting to the soundtrack to the choreography — is curated to connect with the audience on a visceral level.

Advertising, on the other hand, often gets stuck in its own cycle of efficiency: KPIs, impressions, clicks. Useful, yes. But where’s the magic? Where’s the cultural electricity that makes people not only see a brand, but really feel it? Connect with it? Desire it?

Fashion thrives because it understands that connection is an art form. And if advertising wants to keep its place in culture, it can learn a lot from fashion’s playbook. There are four lessons in particular that I think stand out.

Lesson 1. Embrace Trend Awareness

The fashion industry is inherently cyclical. Seasons change, hemlines rise and fall, colours shift from neon to neutrals in the space of a few months. Fashion houses survive because they anticipate these shifts, not just react to them.

In advertising, trend awareness often gets mistaken for “being on TikTok.” But the principle is bigger than any one platform. It’s about having your finger on the cultural pulse — from design aesthetics and music styles to social causes and humour trends — and understanding why they matter to people right now.

Fashion brands know that missing a trend window can make a campaign feel instantly dated. Agencies can apply the same discipline by actively scanning social media, reading industry publications, and attending cultural events — not just marketing conferences — to inform creative strategy.

Cultural relevance isn’t a garnish; it’s the ingredient that makes a campaign resonate in the moment.

Lesson 2. Prioritise Visual Storytelling

Fashion’s product is visual by nature, but the real skill is using that visual appeal to tell stories that spark desire. A new handbag isn’t just shown; it’s photographed in golden-hour light on a cobbled Parisian street, hinting at the life you could live if only this handbag were yours.

Agencies sometimes forget that audiences are moved by images long before they process copy. While product benefits and features have their place, leading with aesthetics can create a stronger emotional hook.

The lesson from fashion is simple: invest in visuals that stop people mid-scroll. This means stylised photography, thoughtful art direction, and design choices that are as strategic as they are beautiful. And it means thinking beyond functional product shots to create aspirational worlds people want to be part of.

Visual storytelling isn’t just about looking good. It’s about creating a mood that lingers long after the ad is gone.

Lesson 3. Focus on Brand Behaviour, Not Empty Adjectives

Fashion brands have long understood that credibility comes from what you do, not what you say. Limited-edition drops, unexpected collaborations, or brand-produced films speak volumes about a brand’s identity. Actions like these are tangible — they can be seen, touched, and shared.

In advertising, we sometimes lean too heavily on slogans or adjectives that claim values instead of proving them. Fashion shows us that behaviour is the proof point. Sustainability commitments are demonstrated through recycled fabrics or ethical sourcing partnerships. A commitment to inclusivity is shown through diverse casting, not just a line in a mission statement.

For agencies, this means encouraging clients to build campaigns around meaningful action. It’s about creating moments where the brand lives its values publicly, so audiences don’t just hear the message — they believe it.

Lesson 4. Understand the Power of Influencer Marketing

In fashion, influencer partnerships aren’t an afterthought — they’re a core distribution channel. From global celebrities to niche micro-influencers, these collaborations give campaigns instant credibility and social proof.

The best partnerships go beyond a product placement. They are about alignment: pairing a brand with someone whose personal style, values, and audience match the brand’s vision. The result is a campaign that feels authentic rather than transactional.

For agencies, the takeaway is to approach influencer marketing with the same creative energy as any other channel. This means identifying partners who can extend the brand’s story, not just amplify it, and collaborating with them to co-create content that feels native to their audience.

The Bigger Picture

When you look closely, these lessons are connected by one principle: fashion doesn’t just advertise; it participates. It doesn’t sit on the sidelines, hoping people will engage. It steps into the conversation, sets the tone, and invites people into its world.

Advertising can do the same — but it requires a shift in mindset. It means replacing a purely transactional view of campaigns with one that values cultural relevance, aesthetic power, authentic action, and credible voices. It means remembering that at the end of every media placement is a person, not just a target.

Closing the Gap

The fashion industry understands that to sell a product, you first have to sell a dream. And dreams aren’t built on CPMs or click-through rates; they’re built on emotional resonance, desirability, and the sense that a brand “gets” you.

If advertising can blend fashion’s cultural intuition with its own strategic precision, it can create campaigns that don’t just reach audiences — they move them. And in a market where attention is fleeting, that’s the real runway worth walking.

At our core, we don’t just admire the way fashion connects, disrupts, and inspires — we aspire to build this in everything we do. We don’t just talk about relevance, we make it part of the brief. We don’t just watch trends, we anticipate them. And we don’t just produce advertising — we create work that earns its place in people’s lives, the way great fashion earns its place in their wardrobes.

Because in today’s market, it’s not enough to be seen. You have to be wanted.
And that’s exactly what we, at Ebony+Ivory endeavour to deliver.

Let me start by saying that this isn’t another rant about the broken process of pitching or how to change the system because realistically,  in today’s competitive landscape, pitches are often the lifeblood of new business. But they do come at a steep cost that isn’t often considered. For Financial Directors, the question turns from “How much do we invest?” to “Is it sustainable?” So I started to dig around to see what the answer to that question might be; what I found was astounding, and concerning.

The mounting financial burden
According to the latest Scopen report, South African agencies participate in an average of 47 pitches per year spending R 1.6 million annually on new-business efforts—and top-tier agencies invest nearly R 3.9 million. By comparison, Brazil averages 16.2 pitches and Spain 27.

Only 24% of pitches in South Africa were remunerated last year with an average pitch fee around R50 000 against the R108 400 agencies believe is the minimum fair remuneration for pitch participation. Worse is the conversion rate which sits at a mere 17% on average, with more than half of agencies reporting a success rate below 10%.

Out-of-pocket costs push the total even higher, with agencies spending additional costs on outside resources like freelancers, production, travel, and materials. Add to that the internal team investment—typically 5–8 staff members dedicating over 44 hours each per pitch—and you’ll see how quickly these costs multiply.

Returns that fall short
Even when pitches are successful, they don’t always convert to revenue. Agencies, according to European Association of Communications Agency (EACA), need to win at least €7 million (roughly R166 million) in business assuming a 10% EBITDA margin just to break even on pitch costs. And based on the same study, 6 out of 10 winning ideas never even see implementation—turning even a “win” into a cost-heavy event.

Beyond the numbers, pitch fatigue spells trouble for morale. Nearly half of agency staff report being overwhelmed — stress, burnout, and high turnover have become unintended consequences of an unsustainable pitching model.

The reality is this: every pitch is a mammoth undertaking. It asks an agency to stop, reconfigure and mobilise its best minds and resources to solve a problem for a business that may never become a client. It asks for strategy, craft, creativity, insight and often production — all to be delivered under immense time pressure, with no guarantee of return. And yet, this work is often treated as if it costs nothing more than a meeting and some good ideas.

The financial toll is measurable, but the human toll is harder to quantify: late nights, strained teams, opportunities set aside, and the quiet fatigue of delivering brilliance into the void.

If the industry is going to keep asking agencies to pitch — and it will — then we must at least acknowledge the true weight of that request. Clients, procurement teams, and marketers alike need to understand that every pitch is not just a creative exercise. It’s an investment. It’s a sacrifice. It’s an act of faith. And it deserves the respect, transparency and fairness that such an undertaking warrants.

In this final blog, (you can find the previous blogs in the series here), I’d like to ask the fundamental question…What’s standing in the way of a true media renaissance?

We’ve explored the strengths that make media agencies indispensable, the weaknesses that have kept them undervalued, and the opportunities waiting to be claimed. So today, we turn to the threats. And they’re not just theoretical. They’re already knocking.

The biggest threat facing media agencies isn’t AI. It’s apathy.

It’s the slow, subtle erosion of strategic authority. The way the media function is being disaggregated, commoditised, and automated into irrelevance — not because the work isn’t important, but because the value hasn’t been properly framed.

When everyone thinks they can “DIY media” with dashboards and audience segments, they stop seeing the need for deep expertise. That’s the danger — and it’s already playing out.

Media’s superpower has always been a mix of logic, insight, and creative application. But that blend depends on one thing: sharp, curious, cross-skilled thinkers. And we’re simply not growing enough of them.

Consultancies, platforms, tech vendors — everyone wants a piece of the media pie. They’re pitching planning. Offering end-to-end solutions. Talking fluently about ROI, efficiency, audience intelligence. But behind the PowerPoint polish, the truth is: they’re borrowing media language without the media logic.

They don’t know the nuance. They don’t understand the trade-offs. They haven’t lived in the messiness of budget allocations, behavioural modelling, or cross-platform leakage. But clients, dazzled by speed and salesmanship, are buying in.

The internal threats are just as dangerous, and media agencies can be their own worst enemies when they, undervalue their thinking; lead with cost instead of craft, sell tools instead of ideas and stay quiet in strategy conversations…they become easy to overlook. They feed the perception that media is transactional. That it’s something you can plug in, rather than something you co-create. And in that vacuum, real strategic influence disappears.

But this isn’t a doom forecast. It’s a wake-up call.

Media needs to protect its IP — not just the tools, but the thinking behind them. It needs to build brand equity in the discipline of media itself. It needs to show up loud, early, and unapologetically in strategy conversations.

Media agencies need to remember what they’re really here to do: bring clarity, cohesion, and commercial value to an increasingly chaotic landscape.

The path forward isn’t just about rebranding media. It’s about rebuilding its role. Because if we want smarter marketing, sharper thinking, and stronger outcomes — we’re going to need media at the heart of it.

Still here. Still sharp. Stepping out of the sidelines.

Part three in our series (you can find part 1 here and part 2 here) and we are getting to the heart of where the future of media agency leads, if we take the opportunity.

Media strategy is in trouble. The space once reserved for brave thinking is being overrun by buzzwords and bandwidth constraints. Decks are bloated. Data is directionless. Media owners are overstretched. Clients are overwhelmed.

And yet, this is exactly why media agencies should be thriving.

The role of media has outgrown “placement.” It’s no longer just about matching eyeballs to airtime. It’s about designing communication systems that convert — ecosystems that connect ideas to outcomes and deliver true return on investment.

Most media agencies already have the tech stack to make planning predictive, the talent to turn performance into foresight and the track record of solving complex problems across categories

What’s missing is boldness — the confidence to reposition the agency not just as an execution partner, but as a strategic engine.

Because while everyone else is chasing the next trend, media agencies are uniquely positioned to cut through the clutter, simplify the chaos, and build something that works.

The world doesn’t need another media plan. It needs a media mindset — one that’s:

• Outcome-obsessed, not just output-focused
• Channel-agnostic, not locked into legacy
• Customer-centric, not CPM-chasing

And that mindset already exists. It lives in media agencies.

This is the time to proactively reframe briefs; co-create strategy with creatives and clients, lead conversations on effectiveness and bring the evidence, not just the energy.

This is a call to action to media professionals: Stop playing it safe. Ask for the strategic seat. Challenge the brief. Show your thinking. You’re more than the media plan — you’re the mechanism that helps make the marketing work.

This moment of chaos is also a moment of opportunity — for clarity, for leadership, for commercial creativity. And media agencies have every right to seize it.

Continuing our series (and if you missed part 1, you can find it here ) it’s inevitable that we need to address what’s not working… A weakness that continues to plague media agencies is being treated as channel implementers instead of idea architects. Not because they lack strategic depth, but because the industry too often fails to tap into it. This is made more pervasive by outdated briefing structures, budget-first planning, and a persistent view that media’s role begins after the creative has been cracked.

The result? Great media thinking gets reduced to scheduling. The discipline that should help shape strategy and creative thinking becomes the team that’s asked to “find the cheapest rates” and “push the GRPs.” It’s no wonder the smartest minds in media are burning out—or worse, checking out.

The tragedy? We’re squandering expertise in an era that needs it more than ever. We’re delivering in silos and wondering why the sum doesn’t equal the parts. We’re briefing media like it’s just the execution layer, rather than the operational glue.

This is not just inefficient. It’s expensive. It’s risky. And it leaves value lying waste on the table.

This weakness isn’t about capability. It’s about positioning. And positioning can be changed. This is the fight worth having. Because when media is treated like a strategic partner, everything else gets sharper—from the creative idea to the final KPI.

This blog series was inspired by an industry piece I was asked to write for Business of The Media recently. A short sharp view of what’s working and what’s not in the media agency world and I realized I had a lot more to say on the subject.

I’ll share, over this series, where I believe media agencies are (or could be) thriving, where they’re stuck, and how I think they can reclaim their rightful place as a strategic pillar in communication planning.

I always find the best place to start is with what’s working. And let’s be honest, there is a lot that is working… when it’s actually working.

Media agencies hold the deepest, rarest skill sets in the ecosystem. They offer true integration—the place where legacy meets digital, where eyeballs still equal impact. They’re often one of the few in the room who know how the whole machine fits together. They understand audiences in ways algorithms still don’t and it’s a skill that blends data fluency and human insight. They should be fluent in both legacy and emerging media, and in platforms most people can only skim the surface of. From AI-powered planning to Account-Based Marketing, from geo-fencing to full-funnel attribution, this is not just tactical execution — it’s scientific orchestration.

 

Why? They speak a rare language — part logic, part instinct — that blends audience understanding with channel expertise, platform knowledge with commercial acumen. They are a bastion of real integration, where legacy media collides with digital precision, and where the pursuit of outcomes, not just outputs, still matters.

While others chase impressions, media agencies are building impact.

They understand audiences in ways algorithms don’t. They can spot patterns in chaos, find efficiencies in complexity, and design full-funnel solutions that actually convert. They aren’t guessing where your audience is — they already know, because they’ve been tracking them across formats, touchpoints, behaviours, and devices long before it was fashionable to talk about omnichannel anything. And it’s time we called it what it is: mastery.

Part of the problem is invisibility. Media agencies are so good at making things run smoothly, they’re often invisible when they do. But invisibility shouldn’t be confused with irrelevance. In fact, it’s the opposite. When creative is fragmented, budgets are shrinking, and consumers are disappearing into ever-narrower niches, media agencies are the ones still building bridges between it all.

If we want better campaigns, sharper results, and more connected communication strategies, then we need to stop treating media like an afterthought. Start by recognising their strength. Invite them in earlier. Let them challenge your thinking. Let them build the outcome with you, not just execute it.

Because when media leads with you, things work. And when it doesn’t, we’re just throwing money into noise.

In the next blog, I’ll explore why — despite all this strength — media agencies often remain sidelined. Spoiler alert: it’s not always because of a lack of skill. It’s because we’ve forgotten how to use it.

Stay tuned.

Still Here. Still Sharp. Still Sidelined?

In a year where mediocrity masquerades as strategy, media agencies remain the unacknowledged backbone of communication planning.

Media agencies hold the deepest, most adaptable skillsets in the ecosystem. They are the last bastion of true integration – where legacy meets digital, where eyeballs still equal impact.

They’re often the only ones in the room who know how the whole machine fits together. They understand audiences in ways algorithms still don’t. It’s a skill that blends data fluency and human insight.

They’re fluent in both legacy and emerging media, and they’re fluent in platforms most brands only pretend to understand. Programmatic precision, AI-powered planning, and the ability to find and convert niche audiences through ABM? This is not just targeting – it’s a science.

And yet… despite this mastery – they’re often bolted on like an afterthought. Treated as channel implementers instead of idea architects. By the time the media brief lands, the big thinking is done, the budgets are thin, media’s job is often to “make it fit” and the space to shape real outcomes is gone.

Here’s the good news: the bar has never been lower.

Clients are overwhelmed, drowning in a confusion of options. Media owners are under-resourced and chasing targets, not the best media placement to meet objectives. Strategy, as a discipline, is being diluted by decks with no data. Everyone’s chasing impressions… not outcomes.

If media agencies step up, not as service providers, but as solution designers, they can lead again by offering clarity, cohesion, and commercial results. With the right tech stack and thinking cap, media agencies can become the architects of marketing effectiveness – but only if they stop playing safe.

But who will lead the charge? The talent pipeline is broken. We’re training platform operators, not media thinkers. And without fresh, curious minds to ask better questions, we’re just optimising decline.

If we don’t attract and grow bold, curious, multi-skilled, cross-disciplinary people, AI won’t kill media agencies. Irrelevance will.

Media agencies have never been more needed. But need alone doesn’t guarantee influence. This year is a tipping point: either media takes the lead, or it gets left behind.

Paul Middleton is the director of Ebony+Ivory – the long-standing independent, specialist services agency in South Africa.

Originally published by The Media. For more industry insights, visit bit.ly/4lceg5q

Balancing Art and Speed: Navigating Creativity in Modern Advertising

Over the last 54 years, we really have seen it all at Ebony+Ivory. How life and our ways of working – and what we are working on – has changed over this time.

I can recall when there were no supermarkets, only speciality stores of butchers, fruit and veg grocers and cafes on every street corner. I can even recall the first Pick ‘n Pay store launch… it was so foreign and it seemed hard to believe that you could really get everything you needed, all under one roof.  Fast forward to today, the mom-and-pop stores have become niched boutique offerings for the upper end of the market.

“Creativity has always been the lifeblood of our agency.”

But actually, living through this progress has distinct advantages. As an agency, we’ve constantly adopted new skills and services; adding them to our repertoire and expanding and integrating them to the skills we had already mastered. Living through the past five decades has allowed us to evolve with TV and radio, introducing digital and social as it unfolded and adjusting to this new ‘normal’ that is plugged into, well, everything! And while the progression is largely natural, it is welcomed and brings progress and improvement to all spheres of life.

I often reflect on how overwhelming our industry must be to new entrants and not just from the agency side, but client side too. We have had the advantage of time on our side; new agencies and people must learn, embrace and perfect the entire ambit of old “tried and tested” and the new to be successful in this current landscape of advertising.

One of the most profound areas of change and impact has been in the creative sphere. Creativity has always been the lifeblood of our agency. Our approach has always been to add value and deliver innovative campaigns and compelling storytelling. However, in today’s fast-paced, content-saturated world, the demands on creativity have shifted dramatically. With the digital revolution and the proliferation of media channels, we are under increasing pressure to produce more content than ever before. This surge in demand raises a critical question: Has creativity declined or improved in today’s context?

The Creativity Conundrum

On one hand, the tools and platforms available today offer us unprecedented opportunities for creative expression. Advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and big data analytics enable us to craft personalised and immersive experiences. These innovations have the potential to elevate creativity to new heights, allowing us to develop campaigns that are not only visually stunning but also deeply resonant with target audiences and deliver to client’s specific return on investment (ROI).

“Creatives are now expected to produce double or even triple the number of outputs compared to ten years ago.”

On the other hand, the sheer volume of content required to keep pace with consumer expectations has the potential to dilute the creative process. In a recent event I attended, they shared an insight from Michael Farmer, a noted industry consultant and author of “Madison Avenue Manslaughter,” that completely blew me away. He has extensively tracked the increasing workload on creative teams and, according to Farmer, the number of deliverables per creative has skyrocketed over the past decade leading to overworked teams and a focus on quantity over quality.

Michael Farmer’s Insights on Creative Productivity

Farmer’s analysis highlights a troubling trend: as agencies take on more projects, it’s usually without a proportional increase in resources so the strain on creative talent intensifies. The metric of deliverables per creative full-time equivalent (FTE) has become a critical indicator of this pressure. In many agencies, creatives are now expected to produce double or even triple the number of outputs compared to ten years ago.

Source: Michael Farmer, “Madison Avenue Manslaughter,”

This workload surge can hinder the creative process, which thrives on time, reflection, and the freedom to explore ideas. When creatives are pressed to deliver more in less time, there’s a risk that the work becomes formulaic, and truly innovative ideas are left unfinished and unexplored.

“Agencies at large are at crossroads.” 

The Impact on Advertising Agencies

The traditional models of operation are being challenged by the need for agility and rapid content production. To meet these demands, many agencies, including ourselves, are evolving in several ways, by:

1. Embracing Technology: we are exploring how we can integrate automation tools and AI to handle repetitive tasks, allowing our creatives to focus on ideation and strategic thinking.
2. Using Flexible Team Structures: we have always had a fluid team configuration of bringing in partners and specialists as needed to manage workload peaks and specific requirements. 
3. Implementing Agile Methodologies: borrowing from software development, we are implementing agile workflows to enhance collaboration and efficiency to better, more efficient outcomes.
4. Focusing on Talent Development: we are Investing in training and building well-being opportunities to support our creatives in this high-pressure environment.

“Tools and platforms available today offer us unprecedented opportunities for creative expression.”

Balancing Quantity with Quality

The challenge lies in balancing the increasing demand for content with the necessity of maintaining high creative standards. Agencies must find ways to protect the creative process amidst the hustle:

• Prioritisation: Not every project requires a groundbreaking idea. We Identify which campaigns need that extra creative push to allocate resources more effectively.
• Streamlining Processes: We are reducing bureaucratic hurdles to free up time for creatives to focus on what they do best with less time spent on time-consuming administrative tasks and meetings.
• Client Education: We are engaging our clients in conversations about the value of creativity and the time it requires to ensure more realistic expectations and better outcomes.

As we approach the end of the year, I find this is a good time for reflection and planning. I start with a review of what we’ve achieved and what we need to do better. This year, I went back a little further and found myself looking at the old advertising my father had done in the 90’s for our agency.

I’ve often referred to the client pain points he actively targeted in his advertising, and I believe they are the same today and we still live by them to ensure we truly deliver on what a client needs. But the ad I looked at was not about the pain points, it was simply titled THE JOURNEY and spoke about the importance of our logo, which was a set of scales at the time. It read:

“In 1969 these scales symbolised the need for a balanced outlook in advertising, the most important force in Marketing. There to remind us that Good Advertising is a blend of many things –

Form and Function,
Science and Showmanship,
Impact and Restraint –
each plays its part in the whole to Maximum Efficiency.

34 years later…
More products, more advertisers, more competition, more media options.
The Science needs to be more precise,
And Showmanship more visible.

Good advertising continues to be a blend of many things –-
Form and Function,
Science and Showmanship,
Impact and Restraint –
each playing its part.

It’s all a question of balance.

Science | Showmanship | Performance | Results”

It reminded me again, that now –- 50 years later –- little has changed…