TBWA\South Africa is the overall AdFocus agency of the year

TBWA\South Africa is the well-deserved 2022 FM AdFocus Overall Agency of the Year Award winner, also winning the inaugural Group of the Year Award and the African Impact Award, while TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris wins the Large Agency of the Year Award.

The group has also walked away with the Partnership of the Year Award for its hugely successful partnership with MTN, while Grid Worldwide wins the Medium Agency of the Year Award.

After a tough 2020 during which the group pitched to retain its second-largest client, MTN, the business did what it calls “renovating”, allowing it to emerge out of the chaos of the pandemic stronger and better positioned to build and realise its full potential by working in synchronicity and with purpose.

In the past two years the group has seen hugely impressive growth with a number of significant new business gains driving real revenue growth. In addition to growing in profitability, it has also grown in headcount, adding 56 new full-time staff members. And apart from growing its top-line revenue growth, the group has increased the efficiency with which it is managing clients, leading to less wastage.

Group of the Year

The Agency Group of the Year Award is a new addition to AdFocus. The measure of a strong group is typically how successful each of its individual operating companies is. The two finalists in this category — M&C Saatchi Group and TBWA Group — tick this box. However, it was TBWA that clinched the inaugural award.

While each individual company within TBWA can hold its own in its respective category, the judges were particularly impressed with the cohesion of the group across multiple companies and disciplines. This cohesion is most evident on the MTN account. The judges were also impressed with how the group is building for the future and its internal mantra about doing the brave thing.

Creatively, the group has excelled, with TBWA\South Africa ranked as the leading group of the year at the Creative Circle for the past four years. Scopen ranked TBWA\South Africa as the best group to work for in South Africa, and Yellowwood — another TBWA company — as the best strategic consultancy in South Africa.

Businesses in the group include TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, a full-service marketing communication agency; through-the-line agency Grid Worldwide; business, marketing and brand strategy consultancy Yellowwood Future Architects; corporate reputation and PR company Magna Carta; Sting Content, an audio and visual content production business; and data, media and social business Omnicom Precision Marketing Group.

The makeup of the group has been very deliberate, with the aim of retaining specialist agency brands managed by some of the best professionals in the industry. The aim of the collective is to always act in service of finding the best solution to the client’s problem, utilising talent deployed across the group based on capability and need. It’s an operating model that is working remarkably well for the group, eliminating duplication and inefficiency.

Large Agency of the Year

The calibre of entries in this year’s large agency category was outstanding. According to jury chair Faheem Chaudhry, it’s the best he’s seen in the three years of being an AdFocus juror. All the finalists this year successfully demonstrated their growth, how they successfully bedded down large clients and how they maintained a very high level of business and creative performance.

“Importantly, the creative work being produced by the top contenders continues to set the standard in the industry,” says Chaundhry.

TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris wins the large agency category after an outstanding year of growth putting out an excellent creative product, said the judges. It was ranked as the most creative agency for the fourth consecutive year by the Creative Circle and ranked third overall at the 2021 Loeries. In 2021 it was ranked as the 22nd-most creative agency globally with the 32nd-most awarded campaign, according to the Warc Creative 100 rankings. Scopen ranked TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris the best integrated agency in South Africa.

The judges were also impressed with the agency’s stable client relationships and a people strategy that is paying dividends. The agency has done well in terms of transformation and has been very deliberate about training, while a high-profile leadership represents the industry across a number of industry bodies.

The judges added: “It felt like a year where all the pieces of the puzzle came together for them. A worthy winner.”

African Impact

TBWA\South Africa wins the African Impact Award. Together with client MTN, the agency has made a huge impact on the continent in multiple markets. The repositioning and relaunch of MTN across the continent as it evolved from a telecommunications company to a technology company was a mammoth task involving multicountry teams working in tandem.

The jurors were particularly impressed by the fact that the agency used local market insights to generate work across many geographies.

The impact of the MTN campaign has been extensive: local teams have grown in both confidence and capability. In TBWA’s CDI agency, MTN regional projects have become so sought after that the agency has had to establish a clear and transparent roster of involvement, while in Uganda, a leading fast-moving consumer goods client is in negotiation with “the MTN agency” on a project.

TBWA’s work for MTN has contributed to the technology company being named the most valuable and strongest South African brand by Kantar and Africa’s most admired brand by Brand Africa.

The big take-out: In the past two years the group has seen hugely impressive growth with a number of significant new business gains driving real revenue growth.