That Joe Public was also chosen by popular vote of advertising people for the Popular Choice Award shows firstly that the judges' choice was a good one, and secondly that it's an agency with a high likeability factor.
Growth was the biggest factor in the selection. Joe Public experienced revenue growth of 92% (reflecting the 2012 situation) and new business billings of R430m (suggesting the outlook for 2013). But the award requires more than one-dimensional performance, and Joe Public has been one of the leading winners of creative awards.
Runner-up was Ogilvy CT, which has had a fantastic year for creative awards. Its awards tally was 70% higher than the second-best agency.
Ogilvy won the Best Group award, which is not surprising when you look at the other awards it won: Cape Agency of the Year, Public Relations Consultancy of the Year, Durban Agency of the Year, Baobab Award (for building and maintaining client relations).
A new award, Agency Champion, African Region, was presented to Jericho Communications of Zimbabwe.
Two awards were made for the last time. Small Media Agency of the Year will be dropped from the roster because there are too few candidates. The Baobab Award, for building and maintaining client relations, is also being dispensed with because it doesn't seem to be sustainable.
The annual publication, Tony Koenderman's AdReview, reflects much of what is happening in the ad industry right now. Employment in the ad industry grew by a measly 0.5% last year, a clear indication that marketplace conditions are becoming a constraint on business expansion. Figures submitted to AdReview show that employment declined in big agencies by 3%, but in small agencies it grew by 11%.
This is consistent with a trend of clients showing increasing willingness to award big accounts to small (or smaller) agencies. There's a realisation that many of the best people in the industry work in small agencies, or have broken away from a larger agency. The advantage to clients is that they have direct interface with the people in the agency working on their accounts.
The champion new-business winner among small agencies in the last two years must be M&C Saatchi Abel. Off a zero base, it won clients like Edgars, Nedbank and brandhouse, and leaped to eleventh biggest in the country in two years. Old Friends Young Talent, Gary Leih's Cape Town startup, won the Kia Motors account, worth around R50m a year. Examples abound.
The biggest failing of South African advertising has been its inability to win awards in digital advertising. Creative competence in this area is "absolutely essential," says Jupiter Drawing Room chairman Graham Warsop. "Without it, South Africa will never be regarded as a credible player in the forefront of global communications." He is still waiting for someone to claim his case of French champagne for the next winner of a Cyber Lion at the Cannes advertising festival.
