JOE PUBLIC UNITED – Growth, Ideas – 22 Years of Creativity

All over the world, marketing agencies can seem like daunting places. Of course, for those that work within, this is something that they would never admit. A lot of the time they present an image of a cool, laid back, relaxed environment, where ideas can thrive. But for the customer – especially the smaller business or the individual – marketing remains intimidating. It’s expensive and complicated, and when it comes to agencies, one industry commentator described them as ‘like yachts – underused, expensive and all the same’. For Gareth Leck, Pepe Marais and Noel Cottrell, when they started their agency in 1998, this was a stigma they wanted to escape.

The three had some experience in the industry but all were entrepreneurial and wanted to bring their own ideas to the market, dominated at the time by a handful of large players.

South Africa was still a relatively young democracy and the economy was buoyant. From the late nineties through until the late 00s, business in the country boomed. Leck, Marais and Cottrell had started at the perfect time. The trio had also hit the right note with their model. An unconventional approach, the style was designed around the takeaway restaurant model.

“We came up with the idea of opening an agency that was very transparent and was based around a restaurant menu idea where you could walk into the office and know exactly what an ad would cost you by looking at a menu,” Leck tells Enterprise Africa.

Nothing was pretentious, there was little jargon to contend with, and the pricing was crystal clear. It was simple, and it allowed clients – who might have previously found the marketing world challenging – to utilise the important tools on offer. At the time, advertising was predominantly focussed around print, TV and radio, and the expertise of the three founders was extremely helpful for clients.

“We knew we were not big names and we needed to do something disruptive if we wanted to do our own thing, and so we labelled the idea ‘take away advertising’. That was the launchpad for Joe Public – we all quit our jobs and it was a revolutionary idea,” remembers Leck.

The name of the company was almost stumbled upon. It again showed the desire of the entrepreneurs to be clear and simple, and work with those who needed it most.

“We had a one-page business plan and it was linked back to the model of take away advertising – it said we want to do advertising for the man on the street or Joe public. It was about making great advertising accessible to anyone. We had some ideas for agency names but a friend of ours pointed out Joe Public, as written in the plan, as a cool name. We also liked the fact that it had a level of simplicity. There were other agencies with very long, complicated names and we liked the fact we were different and we were just a group of guys coming in to do work for the man on the street,” laughs Leck.

He says that the company’s atmosphere and culture has remained from those early days – very down to earth. “We don’t like big egos – we think that gets in the way of business.” The focus at Joe Public is not about projecting an internal image to the wider industry, it is about getting the job done for the sake of clients and staff development.

“The market stood up and watched as we pushed forward with this breakthrough take-away advertising model and, while many said it was crazy and wouldn’t work, we stuck to our guns and we had a great few years and a lot of fun in the early years as we built our agency.”

GROWTH

People quickly took to the model and the agency became popular, winning Financial Mail AdFocus Emerging Agency of the year in 2000. The takeaway advertising idea had proven a success. But Joe Public was still a young business and the company made the decision to evolve to meet the needs of its growing client base and keep up with market changes. Clients were demanding a broader range of services and wanted to develop long term relationships and not only work on one off projects. Each client had a different need and the ‘off the shelf’ approach of take away advertising needed to be tweaked.

Sticking with the restaurant theme, Joe Public became what Leck terms more of a ‘sit down advertising business’.

“The idea was to become a more traditional advertising group as we wanted to find a more sustainable business offering with retained clients and ongoing revenue streams,” he says.

Each client could now obtain a tailored quotation based on exacting needs and, because of the quality work that the agency was churning out, bigger clients were quickly on-boarded and relationships lasted. This success attracted the attention of the biggest names in the industry.

“We were approached by the IPG group which was represented by FCB in South Africa. They acquired us in 2001 and it was very interesting for us going from being start up entrepreneurs to being owned by a big listed corporate. It was a big shift and ultimately did not turn out the way we wanted it to,” says Leck.

After eight years under corporate ownership, Marais and Leck decided to buy the business back from FCB, with the view of reinvigorating it as a private company. This was 2009 – not a good year for business, Joe Public was on the brink of failure. The global financial crash had all but ended a lot of corporate marketing spend and SMEs were under extreme pressure.

But, for those who see beyond negativity and identify the opportunities that always exist, even the tough times can offer up hope. During the Great Recession, which impacted organisations large and small all over the world, the very identity of Joe Public was reimagined.

“We had to do a lot of soul searching to realise what the business was about and why we come to work. It was a tough time as we were at the start of the global economic crash. We started to work on why we existed and what was our purpose,” says Leck.

After much thought and a collaborative brainstorming process with every member of the staff at the agency, it became clear that the one word that best described Joe Public’s reason for being, was ‘growth’. Not just growth of itself as an entity, but exponential growth – growthto the power of n.

Joe Public’s ethos is now firmly rooted in the growth of its people, the growth of its clients, and growth of the country. “In 2009 we put that at the heart of the business and it has all developed from there. Over the last decade, everything we have done has been centred around our business purpose.”

This focus on growth is combined with a strict adherence to a set of values – creativity, excellence, integrity, respect, leadership, and unity, has resulted in expansion of the business, reaching heights that Leck and Marais did not expect back in the early days.

“We are now a fully fledged communications group with around 300 employees, we have five different businesses in the group, all working in specialist areas of the communications field, and as a by-product we have picked up a number of amazing accolades along the way,” states Leck

MOST AWARDED

Currently, Joe Public is busy with important work for big name clients across various industry sectors. The likes of Nedbank, Jet, Chicken Licken, SAB, Altron, and Clover among many more have trusted the agency to deliver high quality work and the result has been success all-around. For any marketing and advertising spend to be justified, there has to be measurable ROI – Joe Public is South Africa’s leader in this regard.

“SCOPEN, the global research group, assessed all of the agencies in South Africa and conducted a survey with around 200 CMOs, and we came up as the number one agency in terms of making the biggest contribution to our client’s business growth. Number one on a client’s list is ROI and so it was very nice to see the results of that survey where Joe Public was the number one agency and having an impact on client’s business results,” admits Leck.

This research makes up the largest most in-depth and up-to-date view of the country’s marketing and agency landscape and highlights how far Joe Public has come and its undisputed position as an industry leader.

In May, at the 2019 D&AD Awards, Joe Public was recognised as the most awarded creative agency among its South African peers after it claimed a Yellow Pencil (Gold), a Graphite Pencil (Silver), a Wooden Pencil (Bronze) and three shortlists. The agency’s European partner, which is based on the original Take-Away advertising model, Joe Public Amsterdam, also won Agency of the Year.

And in September 2019, for the second year running, Joe Public United was recognised as Agency of the Year at the Loeries Awards (South Africa’s premier advertising awards). The agency won a total of 17 Loeries, including two Gold, six Silver, five Bronze and four Craft Certificate awards.

But, for Leck, winning awards has never been a goal. The entrepreneur says that accolades, like the bottom line, should be a measure of the health of the product that is delivered to its clients. Winning recognition links back to the company’s purpose of achieving exponential growth.

“If you produce a very good product for your clients, a by-product of that should be recognition, just like if you run a good business you should see revenue growth and healthy bottom line growth. We like to see awards as a by-product of us delivering on our purpose. Obviously, it’s a great way to attract the best people into your business and clients want to work with agencies doing the best work. It’s important for marketing but we like to ensure awards are a by-product of the work we do every day and not the focus,” he says.

DIMINISHING AD SPEND?

According to Harvard Business Review, advertising should not be managed as a discretionary variable cost and should receive consistent investment spending. Share of market can be quickly snatched if advertising voice is dampened (Coca-Cola and Pepsi is the go to example), and Leck reminds of the importance of delivering, and investing in, quality product – it will result in positive results.

But there has been downward pressure on ad spend. Even with a bursting trophy cabinet, Joe Public has witnessed the challenges that come from a weak, downtrodden, untrusted economy. He is keen to point out that those who are able to maintain their marketing spend will likely achieve marketing share gains.

“An example of this is Chicken Licken. The agency has done some amazing work over the last few years with Chicken Licken and the results have been equally amazing. We’ve seen direct links with standout campaigns and having standout results.

“If you go back to our strategy about how do we grow our clients, we believe firmly that the brands that are investing in advertising and communications and doing the most impactful work, are those that are consistently performing the best in terms of sales and market share growth. There is plenty of evidence that shows the guys who do the best work on the creative side are those that are winning the most,” he says. In a study conducted in 2017 by McKinsey, it was proven that Cannes winning marketing companies created more value than their competitors. The study was based on Cannes award-winning companies between the years 2001 and 2016 and included the prestige of the award, the number of categories it was awarded in, the consistency of awards won over time and the number of years the company was recognised. Based on the results it was found that companies that did better at Cannes did better than their non-Cannes winning competitors with 74% of these companies achieving above-average earnings.

This is why Joe Public must provide creative products of the highest standard – if it fails, those that are spending on marketing will go elsewhere. And competition is fierce – some reports suggest there are hundreds of large and small companies operating across the country.

“With the economy, which has been flat for a number of years and continues to be so, there are some really stand out businesses that are bucking the trend. It has been tough, but we are seeing amazing case studies where great campaigns are helping clients to win in their markets,” highlights Leck.  

The company has recognised the need to demonstrate the impact of great campaigns and prove ROI, and so has ventured into data, analytics and technology that can bring easy to understand information to the fingertips of account managers.

“We have developed certain innovations, including growth tracker, which is a technology that takes all of our clients commercial metrics across their entire business and we can plug that in and overlay our campaign activity, including what we are doing across multiple mediums and multiple areas, and we can track, in real time, the effects of the campaign in terms of return on investment,” details Leck. “We have been working on that for the past couple of years and it’s absolutely critical. With the economy being so tight, everyone wants to make sure they are gaining the maximum return on investment – that is definitely something we are crystal clear on – it links back to our purpose.”

2020 – FERTILE SOILS

As Joe Public continues on its growth path, driving the ripple effect that grows its people, its clients, and the country, Leck is concentrating on one thing for the New Year: consistently producing world class work.

“A massive part of our strategy is about delivering really high-end product for our clients and our intention is to be doing this more and more across our existing client base and with new clients. We are always thinking about how we do better work for our clients as that is what is going to help them grow their businesses.”

Whether its traditional mediums – print, radio and TV; or innovative new products in the online space or social media platforms, the company has developed a suite for all. Like all agencies, digital innovation is becoming increasingly important.

“It’s no secret that a huge part of the market sits within the digital space,” reminds Leck. “The market has changed from when it was just print, radio and TV. In the UK, for example, over 60% of ad spend sits in the digital space across various platforms, and in South Africa digital ad spend is the fastest growing media category, so if we want to continue to meet our clients requirements and assist in growing them in our area of expertise, we have to constantly build capacity and continue to innovate offerings in the digital space.”

Joe Public’s digital arm is relatively young and the management team only started building it around five years ago. “It represents a decent portion of our revenue and is home to around 80 people but there is huge room for growth in that area. We are working hard putting plans in place to build further capacity,” says Leck.

As well as portfolio expansion, the company is also ready and open to geographic development. Well-known in Johannesburg, Joe Public could use its brand strength to conquer South Africa’s other major metros. “We see opportunities in the likes of Cape Town and Durban,” suggests Leck. But the big opportunities lay in the roll out of new services that complement the company’s existing infrastructure and add to its growth mantra.

“We see growth opportunities in public relations, we think there is massive scope to grow our digital business, we are looking at media planning and buying as there is big potential there, and there are even big opportunities with research, data and analytics,” details Leck.

A LABOUR OF LOVE

In a famous quote often picked up by marketeers, Benjamin Franklin one said: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about,” and Joe Public is doing so. For more than two decades this expert communications business has honed its craft and differentiated itself through a down to earth culture and a strategy which brings quality advertising products to everyone. And it’s not done – Leck is already making plans for the next 20 years.

“We often say that the business is a labour of love. It’s been our creation and it’s our child. It’s 22 years old but there is a huge room for growth beyond 22 years old as a person so why can’t there be growth as a business. It’s not in its infancy but it’s definitely not fully potentialized as an organisation. There really is a lot more scope and that gets us excited.

We think in the next five years we can double this business, if not more. In South Africa, the largest communication group is more than double our size and so we believe significant expansion is possible.”

Even while the South African economy remains stagnant, Joe Public is cautiously optimistic and quietly confident. According to PwC, Chief Executives in South Africa are pessimistic about the rate of global economic growth with 44% believing that it will decline over the next 12 months compared to 35% in 2019. The local economy is not expected to reach meaningful growth numbers for at least the next 12 months, but at Joe Public the only interest is growth.

“The market is what you make of it. If you have a strong brand, a good formula, and you deliver quality products, in times that are tough, you can take share. When we bought the business back in 2009, times were worse in South Africa and we managed to navigate through that. It would be naïve to say it will be easy but there is no reason why we can’t make things work. We are quite bullish. We have a South African flag flying from our building as South Africa has been good to us for the past 20 years and we certainly believe there is a good market to be had here,” confirms Leck.

This is an agency that is not intimidating, is not daunting and is not the same as the others. Unlike the yacht comparison, Joe Public is very different, very clear with its business purpose and the importance of long-term relationships – here ideas can thrive.

“Marketing is really just about sharing your passion,” says NY Times Best Selling business author Michael Hyatt, and at the fertile soils of Joe Public in Bryanston, that has been, is, and will be very much the case.