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#Newsmaker: Philippa Heal on Showmax's winning campaigns and the rise of full-service in-house agencies
16 Sep 2019
Philippa Heal, Showmax's in-house creative lead, has been instrumental in Showmax winning a host of awards recently including a Silver (Integrated) and a Bronze (TV trailers and content promos) Loerie for The Girl From St Agnes, as well as a finalist for social media for 'The Night's Watch' campaign for Game of Thrones.
At Cannes Lions, Showmax also won a Gold at the Shots Young Director Awards for the 'Zero Bucks Given' Vodacom data partnership ad directed by Nare Mokgotho.
This, of course, also builds on the Tali’s Wedding Diary’s wins at both the Bookmarks and Apex Awards earlier this year.
We caught up with Heal who shared with us more about what the recent award wins means to her and how she worked with an all-female creative team to produce these successful campaigns. She also elaborates on why she thinks the rise of full-service in-house agencies is particularly significant both locally and abroad.
Congrats with all the recent wins for Showmax. How do you feel about it?
Thank you! We’re mostly proud that the work had significant business impact, entertained people and created a lot of talk. Being inside the business means we’re even more invested in the impact of campaigns, which makes it all the more rewarding. Wins like these also help us attract and retain talent, which is imperative for an internal agency.
What excites you most about the agency and where it’s going?
The CMO Nicola Van Ast and head of customer value management Anna Vaulina started this agency in March 2017, and a significant amount of effort has gone into making it work. We’re now at the point where our many iterations of process and efforts to build collaborative cross-functional relationships are really starting to pay off.
We’re also putting a lot of effort into nurturing a culture, which is really exciting, and we have opportunities to learn so much beyond our specific craft and roles in this environment and have a slate of content and briefs coming up that would excite any creative. So quite a lot…
What do you love most about your career in advertising/entertainment?
It’s so varied. From working on campaigns for critically-acclaimed HBO productions to reading original screenplays and coming up with ideas to market local shows, to collaborating with the product team on UX optimisation, every day is interesting. We’re also paying constant attention to what customers are saying, and testing and iterating, which is really rewarding.
I’m fortunate to have worked at some great agencies prior to this role, Ogilvy being one of them – I learned from some really strong talents there – and had a freelance run that allowed me to work on a myriad of brands, so the variety and the fun, stand out most.
Any career highlights you’re particularly proud of?
The campaigns for the Showmax Originals Tali’s Wedding Diary and The Girl from St Agnes stand out, as we were a small team and worked incredibly hard on every element. For so many people to share and be entertained by the content was really rewarding. It feels good to win in the Integrated category in particular.
Two early-career highlights were in the film industry. I worked as the assistant to director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables) on a feature film, and got to observe a director’s role, the long-form process, and the craft of acting talents like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Hilary Swank.
I also worked on a hilarious mockumentary called Confetti in London, set-managing Olivia Colman, Martin Freeman and Jimmy Carr at the start of their wonderful careers, and observing processes on an international film set. Those were a brilliant foundation for a career in advertising and entertainment.
Comment on the rise of in-house agencies locally and globally.
While the rise of full-service in-house agencies is significant – more so globally than locally – I don’t believe that the external agency is heading for redundancy. I believe the choice to start a full-service internal agency should be informed entirely by the nature of the business, its objectives and its capacity to run an agency (which sounds obvious, but really requires rigorous analysis).
How much does the business rely on cross-functional collaboration and quick content turnaround? Does the volume of work justify having permanent creative (not just design) and performance marketing teams? How significant are customer analytics and data in the marketing outputs? If the quality of creative thinking and the need to keep up with trends in advertising are important, does the business have a culture and rewards that will attract and retain strong creative talent? And so on.
Nicola and Anna founded the agency with a clear vision. They handpicked the team members: in our case two creative leads (myself and art director Natalie Theron), a business unit director (Lauren McInnes) and a strategist (Thandeka Mali), and held a paid pitch process against other four-member teams. So, they didn’t just shove a bunch of strangers together and hope for the best.
It’s a detailed topic and the above touches on just a few aspects of it, but I think an internal agency is more cost-effective and justifiable for a business of our nature than it might be for others.
What are you most looking forward to/enjoying so far?
Our briefs are often along the lines of: ‘Inspire people to binge-watch this ground-breaking international show’ or ‘Read this original screenplay and come up with an online campaign’, so the enjoyment factor inherent in the briefs is pretty high.
I also love guiding and learning from our growing creative team, fine-tuning processes, and discovering so much about the product and other business functions.
What’s at the top of your to-do list (at work)?
Honestly? Slack Pieter in IT about my login passwords, again.
What are you currently reading/watching/listening to for work?
I’m reading Streaming, Sharing, Stealing – Big Data and the Future of Entertainment, watching as much local content as having a toddler and full-time work allows, and listening to the podcast What’s This Tao All About?
Tell us something about yourself not generally known?
I’m a rubbish cook, but once worked as an assistant chef at Wimbledon Tennis Championships. I thought I was going to be cutting carrots but landed up in the gourmet kitchen. It was a (very) brief gig, with valuable learning: Don’t try and fake it till you make it. Particularly when ‘it’ is an edible meal.
Catch up and connect with Heal on her website or on LinkedIn. For news and updates, visit the Showmax press office or follow it on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
