This model has been built around a creative and strategic hub that feeds insights and ideas to specialist agencies responsible for production execution, overseen by Pangea Ultima.

First to join the fold was the Little Green Beverage Company, producers of the Refreshhh range of soft drinks. What makes this brand an exciting challenge, notes CEO and strategic partner Haydn Townsend, is the fact that it has enjoyed significant success for several years, supplying no-name brand beverages for a number of South African retailers. The time is right, however, for Refreshhh to stand as its own brand.

“This means growing into a number of spaces, from soft drinks to water,” says Townsend. The sheer diversity of the brand is only one of the factors that makes it an attractive partner; the team also relishes the fact that, as it drives innovation, formulating new products and flavours, they have a chance to develop brands from the ground up.

“We’re involved on nearly every front, from brand strategy to packaging and below-the-line. We’ve even been invited to sit with the Board as they test new products,” says creative partner, James Cloete. “In fact, we’ve ideated one of their soon-to-be launched beverages.”

The team’s work with Bevcan is similarly inspired. Creative partner, Gareth Lessing, says that the agency will be working with the brand in a through-the-line capacity. It’s a true demonstration of the Pangea Ultima model at work, as digital partner Ever will handle online executions, while BlkOps, another member of the partner network, crafts the brand’s activations.

US entertainment giant Black Entertainment Television (BET) has also come on board, charging Pangea Ultima with the task of building African flavour within the brand in order to increase its relevance throughout the continent. Pangea Ultima’s brand strategy partner, Moonchild, has been consulting with the brand for several months, and Townsend, Cloete and Lessing are looking forward to bringing this strategy to life within the coming months.

Added to this, Pangea Ultima has worked with different clients on a project basis. “Often, we’ve been called in by partners who require our creative and strategic firepower,” Cloete says. He cites the example of Pangea Ultima’s collaboration with BlkOps to land coveted status as a preferred supplier for Telkom events in a pitch that involved 97 other agencies. The team have already displayed the power of their collective approach with the Telkom Unlimited Movie Marathon, where Canadian world record breaker Suresh Joachim was invited to South Africa to watch an uninterrupted 123 hours of movies in an effort to show the robustness of the Telkom fibre network.

“It goes without saying that we’re thrilled by Pangea Ultima’s rapid growth,” Townsend says. “The fact that we have been able to pick up such great brands within such a brief span of time shows that the industry is ready for a model like ours – especially since each of these accounts requires input from several members of our network.”

“We’re really being given a chance to test the stretch on our collaborative model, which means that we’re able to show potential clients that it pays to do things differently,” Lessing agrees.

The final word goes to Cloete: “We feel it’s been a great start, and we can’t wait to see what 2016 holds for us.”

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