media update’s Adam Wakefield spoke to Mojo New Media managing director and founder John W. Mwanza and Bevis Hoets, group COO for Dentsu Aegis Network sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), about the agency and the Zambian creative landscape’s quirks.

Using storytelling to grow to a full service agency

The prime services of Mojo New Media are design, photography, and audio/music. Why these skills in particular? Mwanza says it comes from his passions.

“When I first went into business on my own, my focus was on my personal skillset and the things I was most passionate about. At the beginning, Mojo was basically myself, my wife Elaine, and an old laptop,” he explains.

“The key focus, from the start, was to tell stories about brands and how they did what they do. The graphic design, photography, video production, and music production are all just tools that helped us tell these stories.”

Mojo New Media, according to its founder, is passionate about storytelling and diligent in the constant pursuit of new and innovative ways to engage audiences.

From those humble beginnings in 2010, Mojo New Media today has 12 fulltime staff and works with 58 freelancers on fixed term contracts.

Mojo reflective of Zambia’s young and talented creative market

Mojo New Media recently signed on as an affiliate creative agency with Dentsu Aegis Network SSA. According to Hoets, the network’s vision of “innovating the way brands are built” is perfectly aligned with the ethos of the “young and talented” Mojo team.

“Their enthusiasm and willingness to be involved in the development of their clients’ brands makes Mojo the perfect partner for Dentsu Aegis Network as we roll out our operating model across the continent,” Hoets says.

“We have big aspirations for Zambia and sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, and look forward to working together with the Mojo team to ensure that we continue to deliver value for our clients.”

Given Mwanza’s assessment of the Zambian creative industry at present, their partnership with Dentsu Aegis Network SSA is put into perspective.

“Zambia has a lot of talent but, sadly, there has not been a significant investment into creative arts. We don’t have a college that offers design, photography, or copywriting so one is either self-taught or educated abroad,” Mwanza says.

“This, in turn, has made finding good staff very difficult. Zambia only has a handful of agencies, but we have a few freelancers in specific creative disciplines.”

Competition is driving innovation in Zambia

The relative paucity of permanent employment in Zambia’s creative industry is reflective, according to Mwanza, of the tight budgets Zambian firms allocate to brand communication and their lack of appreciation for the discipline’s importance.

“They [local firms] draw marketing and advertising budgets before they even have an idea of what they want to say about their business, how they can say it, and even who they need to speak to,” Mwanza says.

“I think it boils down to competition. We are starting to see some multinationals coming in and investing quite heavily in building their brands and communicating effectively. This is slowly starting to make the local businesses rethink their approach to marketing and advertising.”

Mwanza himself studied at the University of Arts, London, and has worked in both South Africa and Botswana. Exposure to “great campaigns” while working in the United Kingdom motivated Mwanza to bring “some of that magic” back to Zambia.

“It was very clear for me from the very onset; Mojo would not survive if we took the business-as-usual approach. We had to be loud and disruptive from the get go in order to shake things up and create a name for ourselves,” he says.

“Having worked in South Africa, Botswana, and England, if nothing else, has helped me understand one basic principle – brands speak to people.”

There is a universal language of emotions that transcends language, race, and background, and Mwanza believes if you can speak this language, you can captivate any audience. This has driven Mojo New Media’s approach in everything it does.

Even though the journey of Zambia’s creative industry is in its infancy, Mwanza says that youth brings great opportunity to introduce new and exciting elements into the local market.

“There is a level of openness to change. That is not common in other territories.”

For more information, visit www.mojo.co.zm

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Mwanza brought his knowledge back to Zambia and uses it to reach local audiences. Ghanaian company OMG Digital is using the similar approach to tap into new audiences in Africa. Read more in our article, OMG Digital’s tips on winning over African audiences