By Darren Gilbert

An accountant in training before the proverbial creative light bulb went off; Oelschig is founder of Halo, an indie agency built on delivering great ideas. And there is no grandstanding or pretension in claiming that. In fact, Halo’s – and by association Oelschig’s – very catchphrase speaks to their significance: ‘Ideas for business growth’. However, no successful company [or agency] jumps to the heights that they hope for straight away.

“Halo has gone through a bit of a journey. We knew what we wanted to be but we took a long time to get there,” admits Oelschig. “When we started, it was very much centred around brand communication. But what we’ve worked out is that the only weapons that agencies have to sell are ideas.”

The reason for this is simple: every great idea solves a business problem. But what is an idea? According to Oelschig, it’s certainly not an invention or even anything new. “An idea is taking understood concepts in the world and bringing them together for the first time [and] made relevant under the umbrella of a problem.” One brilliant, albeit old, example of this is the Volvo Safety Pin print ad. Someone simply took the shape of a car and a safety pin and there you go – an idea is born.

Yes, it’s simple. But that is what makes it so brilliant. Anyone who sees it should be able to understand it straight away. It’s communication 101. Oelschig explains: “The simpler the two things are in isolation, the more obvious the idea seems in hindsight and that’s when you’ll hear people say, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’” This is where Halo wants to play and if you browse through their website and see the work that they’ve done, you’ll find that they are undoubtedly already on their way there.

However, for all the talk about coming up with great ideas, it can pose a challenge. Now, it’s not about struggling to think of ideas – as long as you have a problem, there will be an idea that solves it. It’s rather struggling to sell those ideas to the client. This is especially true for an agency such as Halo which works in the non-traditional space. Not only is it about explaining non-traditional but it’s also justifying an idea when it has never been done before.

It’s a frustration that Oeslchig knows all too well. After all, how do you explain non-traditional to people? “By definition, the original idea has never been done before,” points out Oelschig. “And if it has never been done before, there is no way that you can promise ROI.” Try taking an idea that has been never done before to a client. You’d come to expect hesitancy and doubt. It can also break spirits.

One way of preventing this is to build a relationship and foster trust with your client. Yes, it will take a lot of hard work and certainly test your patience. But what other choice to you have? As Chris Gotz, former chairperson of the Creative Circle points out, the most important part ingredient between clients and great work is trust. You may have an idea that you know will solve your client’s business problem but it’s useless if they don’t trust you enough to attempt it.

Oeslchig agrees wholeheartedly: “If you can get the relationship right with the client, you are going to get the best work. [In fact] the client that we do the best work with are the clients where there almost isn’t an ‘us and them’ situation. Instead, there is a ‘we’.”

One of the greatest examples of what trust can achieve is The Epic Split featuring Jean Claude van Damme. It won a Grand Prix at Cannes and to date has just over 76 million views. But did you know that this video was the sixth one in the series? The first five didn’t come close to achieving what this award-winning ad did. The client – Volvo Trucks – could have justifiably pulled the plug. But they didn’t. And now, they are riding the wave.

Now, while Halo doesn’t currently have a client with a budget that matches that of Volvo Trucks, that doesn’t mean that they can’t in the future. “Our goal is to become the most creative non-traditional agency in Africa. We also want to position ourselves as a creative idea generating business for really tough briefs across a myriad of problems.”

Of course, they aren’t there yet, a fact which Oelschig is happy to admit. But I’d argue that this has more to do with the reality that they are only four-years -old. They’re still growing and learning. But if they continue to focus on delivering great ideas, they may have to readjust their goals sooner than they think.