Razor named Financial Mail AdFocus PR Agency of the Year for second year

Razor Public Relations (a member of the M&C Saatchi Group South Africa) has won the Financial Mail AdFocus PR Agency of the Year ranking for its second consecutive year. Celebrating its third birthday in January 2023, Razor has been nominated every year since launching – winning the category twice.

In 2022 Razor was also named African Agency of the Year by global PR magazine Provoke and was shortlisted as the best corporate agency in the world. Razor is the most awarded agency in Africa and from Africa – having also collected the overall Grand Prix for Best Overall African Campaign in the last 12 months (for Tiger Brands) as well as being the only local agency recognised in the Top 20 Global Campaigns at the Global Sabre Awards.

“As we entered our third year, we did so with some heavy expectations of ourselves. While we had done good work as the ambitious young start-up, we are very aware that we cannot remain a start-up forever. We have embraced scaling up in people and skills with a focus on not losing our culture,” said partner and managing director, Dustin Chick.

“It is easy to burn hot and fast however it is much harder to burn longer and sustain the magic. This has meant that we have doubled down on our obsession with delivering quality work that matters - work that is strategically strong and creatively impactful so that it never fades,” said Chick.

The last year saw Razor grow by over 60% investing exponentially in people growth – doubling the size of both its strategy and creative teams. It also established Razor Cape Town under the leadership of African consumer and corporate communications expert, Liesl Williams.

Jacques Burger, group chief executive officer of the M&C Saatchi Group SA explained that the Razor approach of showing up better as a place for its people and delivering impact that is practical and progressive has been nothing short of inspirational in the group. “Being better as a PR industry is a deep foundation of Razor’ work. The launch of the world first Talkability Index is just such an example – it has revolutionised measurement in the PR industry as the solution that provides real time measurement of the efficacy of PR and communications programmes for clients. What is remarkable is that the tool was built in-house by the Razor data and analytics team,” he added.

The Talkability Index allows both agency and client teams to plan communications impact in real time. It changes PR agency dynamics like never before as it puts executive decision informing power firmly in the hands of brand and communications leaders in the boardroom, arming them with clearcut measurement of the business impact of their marketing, brand, and communications investments.

Commenting on the unprecedented Razor journey since its inception at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mike Abel, executive chairman and founding partner of the M&C Saatchi Group of Companies said: “Winning the Financial Mail AdFocus accolade for a second year is a brilliant milestone for Razor, which was born at a time when starting a new business was the furthest thing from anyone’s minds. The tenacity in the team has been phenomenal from the word go with a fresh approach that challenges the status quo with smarts in line with our philosophy of Brutal Simplicity of Thought”.

“We follow a simple north star: to nurture the reputations of good businesses”, said Chick.

“Acknowledgement of the impact of this steer is due to our remarkable people and clients, and their work in delivering solutions that lift our whole category. It is our team who make us who we are and inspire us all to show up better – every single day - as colleagues, friends, and communicators,” he concluded.