ICONIC COLLECTIVE – Jawbone Becomes Iconic

It’s a new era for Jawbone – South Africa’s leading brand activation and experiential marketing business. Established in 2008, Jawbone began life in Durban, as a one-man-band, handling outsourced marketing activities for some of the bigger agencies and manufacturing promo stands for exhibitions and conferences. The company always built strong relationships with clients and, because of this, realised there was more that could be done to help customers while strengthening partnerships. Jawbone grew into a brand activation business, helping brands like Nespresso, Lego, Orbit, Energade and White Snow to grow in South Africa.

The business became strong and during the tough years of 2016 and 2017, when many companies struggled thanks to economic weakness in the country, Founder and CEO Sven Reinertsen told Enterprise Africa about significant growth. Then, in 2018, a reorganisation of the business helped it to achieve national growth. Reinertsen explained that manufacturing and production would be formally separated from the activation agency but both would continue to work hand in hand as they serve international brands looking for market share in Africa.

After a highly impressive decade, going from start-up to established player, Jawbone was the picture of health – enjoying deep relationships with clients and a strong project pipeline. This success earned the company a reputation for excellence and this attracted the attention of the industry.

BECOMING ICONIC

At the end of 2019, it was announced that Jawbone had joined the Iconic Collective – an integrated and hybrid advertising agency, made up of different businesses, founded in 2014 by CEO Dermot Latimer.

The Iconic Collective now consists of eight specialist companies, each offering up expertise in a different area of marketing: Jawbone, Iconic Digital, Prototyp Works, CMG, Meraki, Metriplex, Torque, and Fableist & Co.

“We are proud to welcome Jawbone Brand Experiences to the Iconic Collective group,” says Latimer. “Jawbone Brand Experiences is synonymous with providing flawless and effective on-the-ground delivery for experiential marketing and events, a service that will benefit our clients. We are now eight agencies with one voice, operating as a collective of creative businesses to deliver end-to-end solutions for our clients. Jawbone’s services will complement our existing shopper marketing, UX, development and technology, design, experiential, print, digital, creative production, public relations and post-production services.”

For Reinertsen, the ability to bring complementary skills together and to develop cross-sell opportunities was the big draw. “Between the eight businesses in the group, we can now compete with anyone globally because we are all experts at what we do,” he says.

The transition started in 2018 when Iconic CFO Rory Pirrie read about the success of Jawbone in Enterprise Africa. Pirrie was a former rugby teammate of Reinertsen and he was keen to understand more about Jawbone’s unique service.

The pair engaged in conversation and it became clear that Iconic was a good fit for Jawbone. What Reinertsen certainly did not want was to sell up to a corporate that would change the nature of the business.

“We had been speaking loosely about setting up a group, there are various ways of looking at it,” he says, “but we knew that historically the way mergers had happened, specifically in the agency space in South Africa, people would go around on shopping sprees and acquire many small companies before pushing them all together and making them comply to a single system, process and culture.”

A scenario like this would have been disastrous for Jawbone which, over the past 10 years, had built a thriving entrepreneurial culture where development is encouraged. For Jawbone to even entertain discussions about entering into a group, the culture fit had to be perfect.

“We have the mindset of being a family. Dermot is massive on culture and has been protecting that since the start,” says Reinertsen. “Trying to do this with an average culture would not be possible. The culture has to be strong – we are all onboard, we all understand what we are aiming for; we are aiming to break the advertising industry and that doesn’t happen easily. It certainly doesn’t come working at 80% – we are asking 100%+ from every single person within the group but because we have that culture, everyone is onboard. It really is unique and culture is probably the secret sauce that makes this all happen. Without it there would be too many egos, politics and back-end systems, and we have managed to put all of that aside and understand that as a family, we can make things happen. Culture is the differentiator that allows us to make this work.”

In January, the latest edition to the Collective was finalised when Fableist & Co was added as the division responsible for PR. Headed by Tia Mthethwa, Fableist & Co brings another arm to the omnichannel approach provided by the Iconic Collective.

FAMILY DNA

Mthethwa agrees that the culture within the group is a real differentiator and allows for a sense of freedom that is rarely present across the industry.

“We want everyone to realise that, even though they were individual businesses, the DNA of the culture is very exciting,” she tells Enterprise Africa. “The culture that Dermot wanted when he began with the idea for the Iconic Collective was very intentional. He approached businesses that reflect the culture and values of Iconic. The family-orientated approach to business, where you put egos aside and work together, has allowed for seamless integration.

“Even though everyone came from individual businesses, what has been very apparent is that we all knew we needed each other to support different divisions. PR cannot be successful without great brand activation; it’s about understanding how each piece fits into the puzzle to be holistic – there is a great understanding of that throughout the businesses.”

According to Forbes, a positive culture is the backbone of a happy workforce. It can result in recruitment improvements, increased loyalty, higher job satisfaction, smoother collaboration, stronger performance, better moral and reduced stress levels.

It is unlikely that the Iconic Collective will be adding further businesses to its portfolio right now. There is a sense that the offering is now complete and the culture is stable.

“We have a solid offering as it stands with the eight business,” confirms Reinertsen. “We would add if we came across the right company but it’s not only the business, it’s the service offering, culture and leadership within that business. There is a lot of criteria that we would need to look to ensure the family works. Yes, there is still room to add more to the group but we’ve currently closed the loop and we don’t have any gaps where we stand. We are able to do almost anything inhouse but if we did come across a service provider that could add to the group we would consider it.”

PAYING OFF 

The first quarter of 2020 has been relatively successful for the Iconic Collective and its eight divisions. Bedding in the businesses and establishing the culture which has been so important is not a quick and simple task, but the group has seemingly achieved it with ease.

In fact, at the start of the year, the Iconic Collective picked up its first client as a group. The customer, a cell phone brand, is launching into Africa and needs a full suite of marketing products, beyond what Jawbone can offer as an individual business.

“We presented as the Iconic Collective whereas previously, Jawbone would have approached for the activation side of the campaign alone,” says Reinertsen. “A big part of the pitch was awareness of the phone, and previously we would have outsourced the PR side of it, but we now have Tia onboard and the client could see the dynamic as a group of experts that all know what they are doing.”

Mthethwa agrees, saying: “We can provide clients with a truly holistic, integrated solution to give them whatever communication needs they have.” 

Going forward, the Group’s project pipeline is strong. Each individual business had a set of clients before joining Iconic and these clients can now benefit from the improved range of services.

“We are now able to cross sell and up sell,” says Reinertsen. “Traditionally, Jawbone was the activation agency but we are now able to offer design, social media, digital services and more. Geographically, Jawbone only had a Johannesburg office but we now have offices in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London, Dubai, and we are planning to open in Australia in the next 12 months.”

The Jawbone team has moved into the Iconic head office in Sandton, an impressive new building close to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The open plan set-up complements the collaborative culture within the business and all of the group’s offices are organised in the same fashion.

“It’s great” admits Reinertsen “because Jawbone does not have a dedicated office in Cape Town but as part of Iconic we can send some of the greatest creative minds in the country to present to a client. As much as we are individual businesses, we are part of Iconic and we are stronger as one. It’s about the collective and it’s about shared skills, resources, and minds. That is why we believe this is something different that doesn’t exist currently.”

The office in Dubai, a few blocks from the Jumeriah Palm, is set to take advantage of opportunities in various nations across the Middle East, where new international brands are entering the market and looking to pick up share quickly. Some of these brands have worked with Iconic Collective businesses in Africa and are happy that the Group is developing a new presence in the region. The team in Dubai is an existing business with a client portfolio, acquired by Iconic, to kickstart activity. Reinertsen is confident that the Jawbone offering will be well-received in Dubai. “We feel there is a lot of opportunity to build on our strategy and execution business as well as our activation and event offering,” he says.

In Australia, Jawbone and Iconic are preparing to roll out alongside a client – a UK-based e-cigarette brand – for which Jawbone has handled all South African execution and brand activation. The brand is looking for a global partner to assist with its international expansion and 53 exhibitions in various geographies, and now with the backing of the seven other companies in the Iconic group, Jawbone is perfectly positioned. “To try and do that out of South Africa is probably not realistic so we need to build presence further afield. The plan is to grow, eventually, into North and South America, but that is still at least three years away. Right now, we have identified opportunities particularly in Europe, the Middle East and Australia and that is where the focus will be in terms of international expansion,” details Reinertsen.

To date, clients old and new are happy with all that is emanating from the Iconic Collective. “Our clients have responded very well and they are more than happy to give us the chance to expand our offering with various group services,” says Reinertsen.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

With all of the early success that the Iconic Collective has achieved in its time as eight businesses with one voice, there is an inescapable drawback that has impacted even the biggest and busiest businesses in South Africa – the economic climate. Weak GDP growth, slow investor confidence and lacking business sentiment has resulted in marketing spend diminishing or being considered more closely than ever before. Right now, return on investment (ROI) is absolutely critical.

When delivering campaigns, agencies must be able to track, change, and ultimately prove the success and worth of a project. Only those that can consistently deliver ROI are those that will achieve industry leading status.

For Iconic Collective, delivery for clients is at the heart of everything it does – the Group’s very existence came out of a desire to be entirely client-centric and to build deep and lasting relationships. Without delivering ROI, this could never happen.

“It is true that people are not just going to throw money; you have to be able to show where it’s going and what it is doing. We can now advise further and shift a marketing plan to ensure added value,” explains Reinertsen.

“That is why this merger made more sense,” he continues. “Within the group, there is a business called Prototyp Works that does app development, builds dashboards, and does amazing things with data. We definitely now have the ability to monitor and capture data and feedback to the client through our dashboards – they can see how campaigns are going and monitor hit rates. ROI is massive and involves the customer experience. We even have the ability to shift a campaign if it’s not working as we thought, where before we would have to wait for a campaign to end before we could analyse the data. Live data allows us to tweak and make adjustments as we go.”

Mthethwa says that, ultimately, there are cost savings to be made when dealing with an integrated agency.

“We have entered the market at a very difficult time, but our offering brings more value for money,” she explains. “Previously, a client was going out to different agencies but now they have a one-stop-shop, multi-disciplinary agency with various divisions. Looking at time and spend, if you had been working with different independents, results would have taken you longer and cost you more. Regardless of the tough economy, we are offering something that makes business sense and in the long run, it is best for our clients’ interests to work with an integrated agency like ours.”

According to PWC, advertising spend was hit hardest by economic slowdown in 2017 (a year when the economy grew by just 1.3%). An improvement is expected to 2022, with a 3.3% CAGR bringing total advertising revenue to R41.5 billion, from R35.3 billion in 2017.

“Marketing budgets are definitely down and the challenge we had before was trying to sell them brand activation and experiential marketing services but now, we can understand business needs, even with a smaller budget we can offer new services – perhaps look at something digital, get online – and then look at linking online and offline,” says Reinertsen. “We are now selling a holistic service. Before, each business was selling what it can do whereas now, we can sell what the group can do. It’s all about value and if I can’t add value but Tia can, I can ask Tia to go see the client and help to solve their problems.”

This fresh approach has helped the Iconic Collective to support some of the most iconic brands on the planet.

“We are having different conversations in boardrooms now,” smiles Reinertsen. “We are not going in to just punt a service. We are asking ‘what are your problems and how can we solve them’. We try to understand the company, the brand, the consumer purchase journey, what can we do to add value to make that consumer feel more comfortable, how can we educate the consumer better – it’s a very different mindset.”

With so many South African businesses now looking to localise the supply chain, large international agencies are feeling the pressure. For a hybrid, integrated agency, that is sees its clients as partners rather than customers, and is a truly South African operation, there are many opportunities.

“I have worked for really big agencies where the focus, after getting the brief, was how can we build the case study – that is not solving the client’s problems and it is more about stoking our own ego,” explains Mthethwa.  

Clearly, the Iconic Collective is the right home for Jawbone and its seven partner companies. The culture fits, the product works, the services are complimentary, clients are open and willing, and the long-term vision is consistent across the Group.

“We do not fit into the advertising community, we’re outsiders; and we’re cool with that,” states Iconic Collective. “We don’t subscribe to the traditional thinking that exists in our industry, because we believe that thinking is fundamentally broken. Everything we do is centred around relationships; it is the very soul of us. Everything else is secondary.”

For this agency family, it seems the only way is up, and the target for global reach while breaking the ad industry locally seems closer than most might dare to think.