Ogilvy & Mather

ABOUT US

Ogilvy & Mather South Africa is part of one of the largest marketing communications networks in the world, founded originally in 1948 by David Ogilvy. The network has over 20,000 employees across more than 450 offices, in 120 countries. We believe that the key to success lies within our Twin Peaks philosophy of creating integrated agency work that is both creative and effective. To see how we achieve this, view our advertising Work and Network pages.Ogilvy & Mather South Africa offers integrated creative advertising agency and marketing services from offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

About Ogilvy & Mather South Africa

In 1948, David Ogilvy founded the agency that would become Ogilvy & Mather. Starting with no clients and a staff of two, he built his company into one of the eight largest advertising networks in the world with more than 500 offices and 20,000 staff across 169 cities.

Ogilvy & Mather South Africa’s origins lie with a small hot shop in Cape Town, founded by Bob Rightford, Brian Searle-Tripp and Roger Makin in 1976. After merging with Ogilvy in 1984, Ogilvy & Mather RS-TM dominated the local creative scene during the first decade and over the next twenty years was recognized as a brand-focused agency that acted with integrity.

During the 1990’s, Ogilvy & Mather South Africa soared creatively under the leadership of Robyn Putter (1950-2010), who eventually went on to become the global creative head of WPP.

Today, Ogilvy & Mather is the leader in the industry, focused on building and transforming brands. Employing more than 900 staff across three offices, O&M remains true to David’s vision; we still see ourselves as a company that does more than ads and have proven that by maintaining our humility and an almost divine discontent at our past successes, we can do more than stay relevant. For more than 50 years, O&M South Africa has created iconic advertising for clients such as KFC, VW, SAB, BP, DStv and Kraft, and we continue to live by our founders credo of “We sell, or else”.

Capabilities:

• Advertising
• Branded Entertainment
• Brand Identity
• Crisis & Issues Management
• Creative Design
• Customer Analytics
• Cause Related Marketing
• Digital Media & Search Marketing
• Direct Marketing
• Digital Production
• CRM
• Digital Marketing
• Experiential Marketing
• Healthcare Advertising
• Internal/Employee Communications
• Loyalty Marketing
• Media Relations
• Mobile Marketing
• Public Affairs
• Promotional Marketing
• Public Relations
• Retail Design
• Relationship Marketing
• Shopper Marketing
• Social Media & Marketing
• Strategic Planning
• Sustainability
• Sales Promotion
• Sales Acceleration
• Trade Marketing
• Viral Marketing

Ogilvy & Mather South Africa Holding Board:

• Moss Mashishi (Non-Executive Chairman, O&M South Africa)
• Abey Mokgwatsane (CEO, O&M South Africa)
• Rob Hill (COO, O&M South Africa)
• Pete Case (CCO, O&M South Africa)
• Paul O’Donnell (CEO, O&M EAME)
• Nadja Bellan-White (CEO, O&M Africa)
• Mike Welsford (Global Brand Director, O&M)
• Angela Madlala (Director of Talent, O&M South Africa)
• Alistair Mokoena (MD, O&M Johannesburg)
• Joanna Oosthuizen (MD, Ogilvy Public Relations SA)
• Luca Gallarelli (MD, O&M Cape Town)
• Duma Ndlovu*
• Mark Harrison*
• Mike Walsh*

SERVICES

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE)

Back in the 1990’s, the former, and late, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather South Africa, Robyn Putter, pioneered the company’s Black Economic Empowerment initiative to ensure that we responded to the need for genuine transformation in South Africa. The company was one of the first advertising agencies in South Africa to acquire an A Empowerdex rating, and prides itself on producing work, hiring talent and working with shareholders and suppliers in a way that is truly representative of the people of this country.

Today, we’re a company that reflects the energy and diversity of our country and are a BEE Level 3 contributor.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSI/CSR)

O&M SA has always been guided by the credo ‘do the right thing’. The company has always played a meaningful role in the communities that surround them, as well as through using ideas and innovation to communicate the causes of others. O&M SA contributes financially and in-kind to many worthwhile social initiatives. These include The Topsy Foundation, KFC Add Hope, Greenpeace Africa, Read Educational Trust and The National Sea Rescue Institute.

In 2012, as they have since its inception, the company answered the call by Madiba to give 67 minutes of time to those in need. O&M staff, suppliers and clients joined forces with the South African Department of Education in their endeavour to to fix up the infrastructure in deserving schools.

Network

Ogilvy & Mather is one of the largest marketing communications networks in the world. The company is comprised of industry leading units in the following disciplines: advertising; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; shopper and retail marketing; healthcare communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing; consulting, research and analytics capabilities; branded content and entertainment; and specialist communications. O&M services large blue-chip companies as well as smaller businesses.

What we believe and how we behave

“Superior service to our clients depends on making the most of our people. Give them challenging opportunities, recognition for achievement, job enrichment and the maximum responsibility. Treat them as grown-ups – and they will grow up. Help them in difficulty. Be affectionate and human.”

The corporate culture of Ogilvy & Mather, as set down by David Ogilvy

Some of our people spend their entire working lives in Ogilvy & Mather. We try to make it a stimulating and happy experience. We put this first, believing that superior service to our clients depends on the high morale of our men and women.

We help them make the best of their talents. We invest an awful lot of time and money in training — perhaps more than any of our competitors.

We treat our people as human beings. We help them when they are in trouble — with their jobs, with illnesses, with emotional problems, with drugs or alcohol.

Gentle Manners, Hard Work

We are opposed to management by intimidation. We abhor ruthlessness. We like people with gentle manners. We see no conflict between adherence to high professional standards in our work and human kindness in our dealings with each other.

We don’t like rigid pecking orders. We give our executives an extraordinary degree of independence, in the belief that freedom stimulates initiative. We dislike issuing orders; the best results are produced by men and women who don’t have to be told what to do.

We like people who are honest. Honest in argument, honest with clients, honest with suppliers, honest with the company — and above all, honest with consumers.

What we admire in people

We admire people who speak their minds. At the same time we admire people who listen more than they talk, and make a real effort to understand views that differ from their own. Candor is a virtue; arrogance is not.

We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work.

We are free of prejudice of any kind. The way up the ladder is open to everybody, regardless of religion, race, gender, or sexual preference. We detest nepotism and every other form of favoritism.

There are, however, limits to our tolerance. We have little time for:

• office politicians
• bullies
• paper warriors
• toadies
• pompous asses
• prima donnas

In promoting people at all levels, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else.

Earning respect of clients

We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have.

What most clients want most from us is great campaigns, with the spark to ignite sales and the staying power to build enduring brands. We put the creative function at the top of our priorities. The line between pride in our work and neurotic obstinacy is a narrow one. We make our recommendations clear. But we do not grudge our clients the right to the final say. It is their money.

Many of our clients employ us in several countries. It is important for them to know that they can expect the same standards of behavior in all our offices. That is one reason why we want our culture to be more or less the same everywhere.

We try to sell our clients’ products without offending the mores of the countries where we do business.

We try to create an atmosphere in which partnerships with our clients can flourish. We attach importance to discretion — clients don’t appreciate agencies that leak their secrets. We do not take credit for our clients’ successes. To get between a client and the footlights is bad manners.

We take new business seriously, especially new business from current clients. We have a passion for winning, but we play fair vis-a-vis our competitors

Antidote to smugness

We have a habit of divine discontent with our performance. It is an antidote to smugness.

We like reports and memos to be well-written and easy to read. We also like them to be short – and sent only to those who need to know what’s in them.

We are revolted by pseudo-academic jargon like attitudinal, paradigms, demassification, re conceptualize suboptimal, symbiotic linkage, splinterization, dimensionalization.

We ask our top people in every office to represent our industry in their communities, to grasp the nettle on difficult issues, and to make their voice heard in interviews, articles, and speeches.

We use the word partner in referring to each other. This says a mouthful

Nine Obiter Dicta

Through maddening repetition, some of my obiter dicta have been woven into our culture. Here are nine of them:

• “Ogilvy & Mather — one company indivisible.”
• “We sell — or else.”
• “You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it.”
• “Raise your sights! Blaze new trails!! Compete with the immortals!!!”
• “We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles.”
• “Never run an advertisement you would not want your own family to see.”
• “The consumer is not a moron.”
• “Unless your campaign contains a Big Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
• “Only first class business, and that in a first class way.”