Y&R South Africa today consists of four local offices, with two in Johannesburg (Bryanston and Kensington), and another in Cape Town and Durban respectively, part of a network of more than 90 offices across the globe. Certainly a worldwide phenomenon. Back in 1923 though, Y&R Advertising opened its doors on Madison Avenue in New York, with a single client. Founded by John Orr Young and Raymond Rubicam, it was the first agency founded by a creative person, with Young and Rubicam firmly believing: 'Our job is to Resist the Usual' - a mission the agency still believes in today.
Andrew Welch, CEO of Y&R South Africa, tells us more...
Welch: Raymond Rubicam expressed it best: "Every generation of Y&R will have to reinvent itself for its own time." Y&R is at its core open to reinvention, new possibilities, embracing change, reimagining and reworking. The mission to 'Resist the Usual' binds each of Y&R's employees to the intelligently unexpected and we embrace the fact that we are a work in progress or WIP. That means that no discipline can be favoured, and that we are hell-bent on finding ways to create meaning for business as well as brands.
Welch: In South Africa, we live by a 'One Studio Philosophy', which means that we work and spread talent across our offices. It's about leveraging the best or most appropriate talent to a brief, in order to give the client the best possible solution.
Welch: We've had a string of wins throughout the year that started with Investec for our Y&R businesses in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and culminated with Cetaphil and Sunfoil Cricket for our Labstore Shopper business unit in Johannesburg and Durban.
We've put a lot of effort this year into aligning our advertising and shopper marketing business to provide our existing and new clients with an extended portfolio of disciplines. Looking back on 2015, while new business has been hard fought, we've grown our capabilities across new clients in a hugely diverse range of categories that we didn't have before: academia, hospitality, snacking and premium ice cream, pet food, pharmaceuticals and dermatology, financial, fragrances, music and entertainment.
This year we won a D&AD Pencil for our work on The Land Rover Bottle Cap. In Cannes this year, our Johannesburg office won a Bronze for Land Rover in Outdoor, and Cape Town won a Silver Lion in Film for a Land Rover campaign. Locally we also had our best Loeries ever, with a very impressive haul of awards across many categories.
That said, it's difficult to single out a specific highlight from the consistent quality of the work, the new wins, the unprecedented Cannes or Loeries success, the unstoppable rise of our Labstore South Africa shopper unit, or even the growth of our Africa agency network, but the truth is, none of these would happen without the quality and calibre of people we have in our Bryanston, Kensington, Durban and Cape Town offices. What makes us permanently proud is the drive and collaborative spirit of our people that make us who we are, and make our agency what it is today. That, if we had to choose, would be the overall highlight.
Welch: The big challenge for the SA creative community is to push beyond what we know how to do really well. If you are still trying to build your reputation and prove your worth on radio and in print campaigns, then you are not future-proofing yourself. We are living in the era of the Connected Idea. It's an exciting time, but there are still way too many creatives in SA that like to revert to the comfort of what they know. It's a time to be bold and embrace the unknown.
Welch: By any account, we've come a long way as a brand and as an agency in the last few years to enjoy our current top three SA agency ranking. But the issue for us is less about ranking and more about sustaining the momentum our agency is forging with its clients, and to keep the ambition burning for continued improvement through an extended offer, more talented people and smarter problem-solving. We have a simple five-point plan that underscores our ambition, and we are relentless every day in attempting to fulfil it. In truth, though, for all the great plans, our one focus remains resolute: to attract a disproportionate share of talent so that we, in turn, can solve a disproportionate amount of client business problems.
Welch: From a business perspective, anything that stands to improve the speed of delivery and accelerate efficient problem-solving will continue to drive much of our industry. Our clients are under pressure and, so too it follows, are we. This will demand a deeper understanding of business, not just brand. It will call for greater seniority and experience, not just competence or capability. It will recognise that not all answers are always to be found in-house and that's OK, and it will make having a collaborative predisposition even more critical. It will mean being comfortable orchestrating a range of diverse disciplines and experts under a unified ambition. And ultimately, it will allow greater creative flight, not less.
Click here to watch our interview with Graham Lang, Chief Creative Officer of Y&R South Africa and Africa, on Y&R's impressive clutch of Loeries 2015 wins, and here for his views on the resonance of locally relevant work and trying harder from judging the Film category at this year's Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity.
