By Adam Wakefield
According to Xenopoulos, a sometimes little known fact within the local advertising is that Y&R South Africa and VML are members of the greater Y&R Group and have been so for more than a decade.
“NATIVE joined this growing family when the agency became part of the VML network three years ago. While it was always our intention to combine the capabilities of Y&R SA and NATIVE VML in order to service clients more effectively, we did very little to actively pursue this integration,” Xenopoulos says.
“Over the past year, as local marketers became increasingly convinced of the need for integrated work, we started asking ourselves how we could leverage the synergies without diluting the individual offerings. The
VML and Y&R Africa Group is our answer to that question.”
With Y&R recognised for credibility, skill, and experience in building brands from the ground up, it is always assured a seat at the lead table in any client engagement, Xenopoulos says.
That credibility and experience will allow the group to introduce NATIVE VML’s digital marketing and customer experience design capabilities at the right level in an organisation.
This will be further enhanced by Labstore’s shopper marketing expertise and their ability to affect the entire customer journey - from awareness to purchase and beyond.
Xenopoulos himself will be assuming the role of group CEO, and while the group’s constituent parts will work hand-in-hand with one another, they will still retain their independent identities, separate operating structures and P&Ls.
“That said, the group structure will serve as a vehicle through which to deliver integrated services. Some clients will choose to work directly with the underlying agencies, but for those who want a truly integrated offering, we will create blended teams, made up of resources from all three companies, working together in a cohesive and integrated way,” he says.
NATIVE VML is already made-up of “tribes” - multi-disciplinary teams that work collaboratively to service a particular client or clients. The VML and Y&R Group will create similar multi-disciplinary teams, with resources drawn from all three agencies, to service a client’s needs.
The formation of the group, beyond the motivations of its stakeholders, is validation for Xenopoulos that the industry as a whole is moving towards integration.
“The fragmentation that has arisen from hyper-specialisation is tearing brands apart,” he says.
“The paradox we are faced with as an industry is that while accelerating technology demands increasing layers of specialisation, customers are demanding greater convenience, cohesion, and simplicity from brand experiences.”
This is forcing the industry to begin working in new, more collaborative ways, so that it can overcome the fragmentation that results from specialisation, while benefiting from the innovation that specialisation allows.
From a personal point of view, while he will be the group’s CEO, Xenopoulos does not see himself sitting at the tip of the pyramid, noting that such a characterisation is incorrect at its premise.
“NATIVE VML and Y&R do not operate in a top-down, command-and-control manner. If anything, we are an eco-system of individual parts that come together to form a greater whole,” he says.
“I am simply one node in that network and I am literally nothing on my own. That said, I am extremely proud to be part of this incredible group of people and I am massively inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead.”