EXP SA ANNOUNCES NEW GROUP AGENCY STRUCTURE

17 January 2014 by EXP Africa

Today, the company is proud to announce that is has remodelled its business to launch four specialist companies namely; LIVE+, a specialist activation and digital business; EXP, which under its previous agency structure housed four divisions has been reformatted to become a specialist sponsorship business; TheGrind PR, a newly launched public relations business, as well as a branding, logistics and warehousing business, named Turnkey. These companies are now all housed as a group of agencies under the banner of Group Africa Marketing PTY (Ltd).

Sandile Ndzekeli, now the Chief Executive Officer for Group Africa Marketing PTY (Ltd), explains the group’s decision for the change in organisational structure.

“In keeping an eye on global and local marketing trends, we realised that there was a requirement for specialists in the various disciplines of marketing. Although we had been planning this structural change for the past 18 months, a shift of this magnitude requires an enormous amount of planning and preparation. With all of our requirements for the group of agencies now optimally in place, we are proud to make this announcement to the market and are excited to commence the 2014 year with this fresh offering,” says Ndzekeli.

LIVE+, an independent statutory business within the group of companies provides innovative solutions through a combination of live experiences and digital innovation to inspire meaningful connections for clients’ brands, products and services.

This step was driven through our insight into market needs – the drive for specialisation is critical for marketing agencies and we have acknowledged this in the brand activation space. LIVE+ will build on their existing service offering by investing in IP and resource in the digital space. Wayne Kotzé- Flemming has been appointed as Managing Director of this business.

Wayne founded his career by starting his own events and promotions business. To expand his experience, he joined some of the country’s leading agencies including Ogilvy Cape Town, Exp Momentum and Penquin International. At an executive level, Wayne has built strong, profitable multidiscipline organisations and worked on brands like Audi, Sony (Ericsson) Mobile EMEA, IBM MEA, MTN, Microsoft, Nissan, Toyota, Absa Bank, Old Mutual, SAB Africa, Tiger Brands, P&G, Unilever, KWV and Coca-Cola South Africa.

EXP, an established and award winning sponsorship agency known for its motto of bringing brands to life through experiential sponsorship activations, will continue to offer clients using sponsorships as a marketing platform, strategic, measurable and relevant concepts and activations. Steward Masela has been appointed as Managing Director of this business.

To date, Steward has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in the corporate sector, first as a business analyst for a business to business company in the ITC sector, followed by a 12-year tenure with banking giant Absa. Working in the bank’s Strategy Division gave him experience in the financial services sector, before he made an internal move to Retail division where he was responsible for business development. He took up a position within the banks Group Marketing structure managing Absa’s overall sponsorship portfolio as Head of Sponsorships. During this time, he oversaw various award-winning sport and lifestyle sponsorship properties including the Absa Premiership, Bafana Bafana, Absa Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Absa Cape Epic, the Springboks, Absa Currie Cup and Springbok Sevens. With a wealth of experience in the sponsorship industry, Steward joins us from SuperSport, where he last held the position of General Manager, Corporate Affairs.

TheGrind PR, also newly launched as an independent business within Group Africa Marketing, was formed off the back of an in-house PR division which formerly offered specifically brand PR services to EXP’s sponsorship clients. TheGrind PR will, however, offer a combination of both Corporate PR and Brand PR services to the industry. TheGrind PR is still in the market place for the appointment of its Managing Director. In the meanwhile, the agency has appointed Modjadji Sithole, who hails from a strong corporate PR background, as the company’s new PR Business Director.

Turnkey, a full service branding, logistics and warehousing business, is now headed up by Tim Morris, whilst the company is in the process of placing a managing director to lead this business. Tim is an Operations specialist with more than 20 years of experience in branding, logistics, warehousing, procurement and fleet management for a range of large scale portfolios. He has worked on brands such as MTN, Absa, Sasol, Barloworld, Nestlé and SAB Miller to name a few.

“I am truly honoured to welcome our new MD’s Wayne Kotze-Flemming and Steward Masela to our businesses. Each individual was handpicked because of their expertise and networks within their respective fields. As highly respected individuals within the industry, we are confident that we have placed our businesses in the most capable hands, to steer us to an innovative and successful future,” says Ndzekeli.

Ndzekeli will continue to be involved in the group of companies, overseeing the growth and development of these businesses from a strategic level, while leaving the day to day management and running of the individual business to the newly appointed Managing Directors of the companies.

Gina Kilian, as Chief Operating Officer of EXP SA and Yolanda Arendse, as Chief Marketing Officer of the EXP SA, will continue to operate in their core roles, but will now do so from a group level, under Group Africa Marketing (PTY) Ltd. As with Ndzekeli, their roles are to manage the individual companies from a group level.

Group Africa Marketing (PTY) Ltd group of agencies have offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. In addition, our group has 16 offices working into 19 markets in Africa, 11 of which are wholly owned businesses. This enables us to provide an end-to-end service for clients with an African footprint. 

Source: expagencynews.blogspot.co.za