Scopen Agency Scope 2017/2018: Ten agencies to watch and follow
Cesar Vacchiano, president and global CEO of Scopen points out, “The reason we decided to include the 10 agencies in the 2017/2018 edition of Agency Scope was to highlight those agencies who have performed particularly well and achieved significant results. Now that we have conducted two studies, it is now possible to see which agencies have really improved year on year and have improved their positions.”
Clockwork Media
This is the agency with the highest level of client satisfaction among all agencies in South Africa.
Demographica
The agency ranked 3rd highest in client satisfaction. In 2018 it led in 12 key service attributes among current clients’ evaluation.
Joe Public
Joe Public is one of the three most balanced agencies in South Africa, ranking among the top 10 agencies in market perception, agency performance (current clients’ evaluation) and agency professionals’ opinion.
Joe Public is the 3rd most creative agency and 3rd most frequently shortlisted. It is the most admired agency by competitors (ranking number 1 in agency professionals’ opinion ranking). Pepe Marais, Chief Creative Officer and a founding partner at Joe Public is the most admired professional in the industry.
King James
One of the three most balanced agencies in South Africa, King James ranks among the top 10 agencies in market perception, agency performance (current clients’ evaluation) and agency professionals’ opinion. King James is the 2nd most frequently shortlisted agency, the 4th most “ideal” in overall market perception ranking. It is also the agency where most agency professionals want to work.
Paton Tupper
Paton Tupper is the only agency from Durban among top 10 agencies in client satisfaction. In 2018 it led in six key service attributes according to their current clients’ evaluation.
Vacchiano comments, “What we have noticed is that several of these agencies are not as well known among marketers as they could be and our advice to them is to heighten their efforts in terms of awareness among the CMOs”.
Promise
Promise is the only agency that was ranked in both 2016 and 2017 among the top five agencies with highest levels of client satisfaction. Promise improved its positions in market perception and agency professionals’ opinion.
In the 2017/2018 it leads with 11 key service attributes among current clients’ evaluation.
TBWA
TBWA Is the multinational agency which has improved the most in this wave of the study. It ranks 3rd in market perception (it was not among the top 10 in 2016) and gained two positions in agency performance. In 2018 it is the 4th agency with the highest level of client satisfaction and is 2nd among the multinational agencies.
Wunderman
Wunderman is in second place with the highest level of client satisfaction and is the first among multinational agencies. It has gained four positions among competitors since the 2016 study and in 2018 is the 8th most admired agency by agency professionals.
It leads in 15 key service attributes according to current clients’ evaluation.
Among the media agencies:
The Media Shop
The Media Shop is the media agency most mentioned for its creative media thinking. It is the, most frequently shortlisted media agency and is perceived as the “ideal” media agency. Leads the overall perception ranking.
Zenith
Zenith is the media agency with the highest level of client satisfaction. It has improved by five positions in market perception and in 2018 it leads in four key service attributes according to current clients’ evaluation.
217 marketing professionals (mainly CMOs) were interviewed face-to-face, from 185 companies in South Africa in the 2017/2018 study. On top of marketers, 152 professionals working in creative and media agencies were also interviewed. Overall Agency Scope interviewed a total of 384 professionals working in the marketing communications industry in South Africa.
“We are starting to plan the 2019 Agency Scope study in South Africa which goes into the field in May 2019. It will be quite interesting to see which agencies have made substantial progress since the 2017 fieldwork”, concludes Johanna McDowell, Scopen Africa partner and CEO of the Independent Agency Search & Selection Company.
