#StartupStory: The Yellow Room

MD Lisa Currey says, “The Yellow Room is about creating high-quality content that is real and relevant. Hamiltons Advertising is in its 23rd year as an agency, with an excellent track record of delivering results in the competitive South African retail landscape."

#WomensMonth: Currey on female-led FMCG retail advertising

Leigh Andrews  11 Aug 2016

"The Yellow Room is a natural progression of what we’ve been doing for some key clients for a while and doing very well.” With The Yellow Room, they’ve formalised their digital content creation offering and ensured that it’s bundled in a way that makes sense to their clients, she says.

Lisa Currey, MD of Hamiltons in Creative Company.

Here, she goes on to tell us that this was a natural progression as she was ready to embrace change and look at sustaining the business for another 20 years, for her younger colleagues and succession team and to leave a legacy for her son...

Why did you feel the need to start a new division?

This was a natural progression. Hamiltons in Creative Company has been creating world-class content for years, whether for TV, radio, print or in-store branding, slick content creation was already happening and now it’s just packaged in a different way.

We have been shooting and producing creative content for campaigns, such as Food Lover’s Market’s Vlogger series, the @home Home Chefs Club and Jan Braai’s “Off the coals” for quite a while.

Food Lover's Market celebrates the festive season with new campaign and a cookbook

Juanita Pienaar  19 Dec 2018

The Yellow Room is an extension of Hamiltons in Creative Company, a new platform to showcase the existing talent that we have. We are also very excited to welcome Ryan O’ Connor, who leaves KFM and partners with us at The Yellow Room.

Ryan O' Connor hangs up radio headphones at KFM

Primedia Broadcasting  17 Dec 2019

Hamiltons in Creative Company has been around for 23 years and we are very fortunate to boast a 100% local and 100% female-owned agency after all this time, in an industry generally dominated by men (but, luckily, we are not in the ‘Mad Men’ era anymore).

With a team of nearly 50-strong people - of which over half are under 30 years old - I realised that it’s time to embrace the immediate future. I was ready to embrace change and look at sustaining the business for another 20 years for my young colleagues and succession team and to leave a legacy for my teenager, should he choose to embrace it.

I am also obsessed with the digital space and how you can utilise it to build and promote quickly and efficiently, but quality is still key to me. Marketing has been in my blood for over 30 years, so I just can’t stop moving forward.

How did you come up with the name, The Yellow Room?

The Hamiltons in Creative Company’s corporate colour became yellow by default. When we moved into our office space almost five years ago, we inherited extremely ugly high orange-brown doors, which just had to be changed immediately. We painted all the doors yellow. As a result of this and the brainstorm for the new name of our new division, we decided on The Yellow Room.

Describe the idea/model.

Hamiltons in Creative Company is a 360^o digital business.

What barriers have you had to overcome to get Hamiltons Advertising to where it is today, and why do you believe this is the next step?

While I don’t believe that we’ve faced obstacles that are insurmountable, I do know that I tend to ignore barriers and just forge on.

As a business owner, I know I have the professional future of my team is in my hands, and I never forget that for one minute.

I am always aware of my obligation. I think it has helped me be accountable and risk-averse in business.

People are the most important aspect of our industry and regardless of all the awards - and smoke and mirrors - we are a service-driven industry and a talent-driven business. So that is what I have focused on: my team and building relationships.

Our core company value is to cultivate people, creating success, and this has served us well in facing any challenges.

What are you working on at the moment?

The first official project for The Yellow Room is a digital video shoot for the JP21 Foundation, a charity organisation founded by famous ex-Proteas cricketer JP Duminy.

The Yellow Room is in the process of creating short Instagram clips for the foundation. These will form part of a fundraising drive to build a fully-fledged cricket pitch at an underprivileged school in Mitchell's Plain. The laying of the pitch will positively impact more than 2,000 aspiring cricketers from the Cape Flats.

Joining JP to lend some gravitas to the project are star Proteas players Faf du Plessis, Quintin de Kock and Vernon Philander.

And what’s next? Your vision for the agency?

We have some really exciting plans for 2020, which includes delivering better visibility and engagement value for our clients.

With the addition of our content creation division, we will make it easier for brands to reach and engage with audiences across digital platforms, to help them achieve their business goals.

I’m building a legacy for my 17-year-old son and hope he is keen to become part of the business.

Any words of advice for others starting out?

Optimism can take you quite far. Always have high hopes.

For more, visit Hamiltons in Creative Company's website.