Backing the new kids on the block, giving start-ups everything they need to build their brand and take on the world.
Read MoreStarting a business and building its brand is no easy task. If you’re just getting going with that business idea you can’t stop thinking about or already have your brand’s name, logo and venture capital sorted, Watson Ferguson is here to help. Our tried and tested brand building process will get your brand out of the starting blocks and ready to take on the world.
First off, we help you stress-test your idea and lay it’s crucial strategic brand foundations. We find out what will make you stand out in a crowd that’s often oversaturated. This helps to define the brand and allows us to move onto giving it a relevant name, logo and look and feel. From here, we're able to develop all your key assets which can be anything from a website for lead-generation, brochureware, corporate stationery, point-of-sale advertising and other collateral. Only once we get to this point, where the brand is solid and looking its best, do we shift our focus to the customer. We work together to find the best ways to connect your newly developed brand with its potential customers through a launch campaign. Our involvement doesn’t stop here, we know how crucial those first few months can be, so we’re here to help your brand optimise and maximise every opportunity.
If your brand or business idea can benefit from partnering with us, please get in touch.
Giving mid-sized brands the flex they need to stay relevant and grow with a brand refresh or re-do.
Read MoreTo stay relevant, every business needs a rebrand or brand refresher every once in a while. This need exists for both new and established businesses, B2B, B2C, in every industry and every size of business. Businesses grow and change, and the brand needs the flex to accommodate these developments. With nearly a quarter-century of strategic brand work behind them, Watson Ferguson has the experience to pivot your brand, taking it to new heights.
We spend time understanding you, your business and ambitions, allowing us to put crucial strategic brand foundations in place. From there, we tweak or entirely overhaul the look of your brand to ensure that it matches your ambitions. This can include assets like business stationery, your website, brochureware and point-of-sale elements. From here, we work on connecting your defined and refined brand to your existing and newly identified target markets through an advertising campaign. Our involvement doesn’t stop here, we follow through ensuring that your newly refreshed brand is optimised and able to maximise every opportunity.
If your brand is in need of a change, please get in touch.
Giving you more from your advertising agency. More quality. More accountability. More marketing effectiveness. More efficiencies in time and costs.
Read MoreWith years of experience working in South Africa's most successful advertising agencies, Watson Ferguson knows it all, the good and the bad of agency and client dealings. When setting up our business we challenged ourselves to offer our clients something different, better even. The result is a low overhead model bolstered by a curated network of the very best freelance talent. We don't do monthly retainers instead, we offer the same rigour and quality of work as the big agencies without the long wait and eye-watering price tag. It’s like having your cake and eating it too, with insightful strategic thinking, profoundly conceptual creative and adaptable yet meticulous production. Our capabilities include ATL, TTL, Digital, Media, PR, Direct, Events and all manner of production, all with more accountability, effectiveness and efficiencies.
If your brand can benefit from the advertising agency offering more, please get in touch.
For big brands with Marketing Departments that need a shakeup. We help develop a plan of action, so you know where to turn and what to change.
Read MoreMarketing a brand is not for the fainthearted. Sometimes brands lose sight of themselves, getting caught up in the business and seeing themselves from the inside out, instead of from the outside in, as their customers do. There is a lot to be said about a holistic, objective, 3rd party review. As a Marketing Director For Hire, this is exactly what Watson Ferguson offer.
Through a 6 month intensive process, our team conduct a comprehensive and tailored marketing audit. We deep dive into your marketing resources and team structure, brand and marketing strategies, partner agencies and creative output, customer research and insights, customer touchpoints and more. From here we are able to propose a way forward, making you stronger and ready for the future. This can take the form of plugging gaps or making significant changes, all with the goal of turning your marketing department into a world-class operation that can support your business in realising its ambitions.
If your brand and marketing department is in need of an objective review, please get in touch.
Here to support your strategic department, to lighten the load of small, medium and large advertising agencies in need of extra resource.
Read MoreEvery brief in the agency goes through the strategy department in one way or another. As the department that listens and learns, it shapes all the creating, inventing and delivering of ground-breaking ideas. As a result, it’s often stretched too thin but that’s where Watson Ferguson come in. As strategic support, we work with agency departments to lighten the load. We are agile, cost-effective and can quickly jump in and decouple selected projects so you and your team can focus on the rest of your workload.
With 24 years of experience to our name, our expertise lies in brand positioning across all the models: ladders, blueprints, compasses, bottles, onions, butterflies, and even the traditional matrix. We’re also well versed in communication strategies, can offer vital pitch support, help to crack that tough brief that’s been hanging around, identify creative opportunities for the agency and complete insightful category reviews. However you need support, we’re here to help.
If you’re looking for short-term capacity relief and strategic support, please get in touch.
The directors of Watson Ferguson Marketing Agency, Andrew and Dylan, have over 20 years of experience working for global ad agencies like Ogilvy and BBDO, working on accounts like Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson, AB InBev, Distell, Cadbury, Mars, Adidas and Red Bull.
Wanting to offer clients an alternative, they launched the business in early 2016. Utilising a low overhead model, Watson Ferguson are able to offer clients high quality work at value that’s hard to beat.
For most of our clients, Watson Ferguson acts as their very own CMO, marketing director, ad agency and production house, all rolled into one. This ensures expediency, consistency, value and overall marketing integrity. The team is also a bit fanatical about strategic marketing that works for brands both big and small, old and new.
Click here to read an article about us on Mark Lives.
Having obtained a BCom Honours degree in Business Management from Rhodes University, Andrew worked as an investment accountant at The Bank of New York in London. Returning home to Cape Town, he decided to change course and joined Ogilvy working on the Cadbury and Volkswagen accounts. Soon BBDO spotted his potential and hired him to run a portfolio of clients accounting for half of the agency’s annual income. Within a year, he joined the management team and was promoted to Head of Account Management. A few years later, Andrew returned to Ogilvy to work on the new SAB Castle Lite business. Under his leadership, the brand experienced double digit growth.
Dylan has a BCom Marketing degree from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and a post graduate diploma at The Red & Yellow School of Advertising. He started his working career at Ogilvy, spending 4 years on the Volkswagen account. He went on to join Instant Grass gaining valuable consumer insights for a year before joining BBDO. There he spent 2 years working as the Brand Strategist responsible for the big Distell portfolio, before being promoted to Head of Strategy and serving on the BBDO Management Team.
Amidst a tough economic period when consumer spending was at its lowest, Spec-Savers briefed us on their most important communications piece of the year. We were asked to develop the Summer Campaign from a creative and production perspective.
Watson Ferguson developed a compelling campaign message and then rolled it out across TV, Radio, Point of Sale and Digital elements. The high production value of each element, complemented by a brand new website we built, broke the previous record for new customer acquisitions and resulted in their best Summer campaign to date.
When first meeting the passionate founders of Keynote Health, we soon realised that building the Keynote Health brand or developing an advertising campaign would not necessarily improve business. We had to determine which activities would deliver the biggest impact for the 9 separate products and business as a whole.
Understanding the business and marketing challenge was a first step. From there we isolated 4 key areas of focus to achieve business objectives and bring about positive change.
The HouseME team had a bold business idea to change residential rental for the better, and a lot riding on the launch of their idea. If they were successful in launching and hitting targets, investment would come pouring in allowing the business to expand. They sought Watson Ferguson for help.
We helped HouseME define their brand, refine their identity and develop a communication strategy and advertising campaign to launch in the Western Cape. Targets were met within a few short months and investment arrived. Now acting as their marketing department, Watson Ferguson created business stationery, a new website and a host of advertising material for HouseME’s national launch. This resulted in more significant growth with HouseME now boasting more properties that most letting agents and plans to take their business global.
Mitchell’s has been brewing delicious craft beer in Knysna since 1983, but many did not know that they, in fact, had started the craft beer revolution. Under new ownership, Watson Ferguson were asked to help ‘wake the sleeping giant’.
Getting to the core of the 34 year old brand was foremost. The first objective was to make the most of the upcoming peak December period so Watson Ferguson quickly developed a point-of-sale campaign for stores, bars and restaurants. This resulted in Mitchell’s best December yet and kick-started the next phase. To bring the brand into the 21st century and make the craft brewery that started it all compete with new rivals, we developed a new logo and range of packaging, followed by a new website and point-of-sale elements. The ‘new pack’ launch was bolstered by events, social media and PR, and as a result the Mitchell’s brand continues from strength to strength.
After a training camp, friends Siya Kolisi and Tim Whitehead where discussing life after rugby when the topic of quality men’s underwear, or the lack thereof, was debated and the idea for Frankees was born.
Coming to Watson Ferguson with an idea and name, we quickly developed the full Frankees brand and then translated this into a unique logo and style guide, to define the look of the brand. We then conducted a competitor review to understand the category as well as developed a brand manifesto which helped sell the idea and inadvertently managed to secure the garment manufactures. With brand and product sorted, our next goal was to build the primary sales channel through a responsive, SEO’d e-commerce website. Not only was the launch of Frankees a massive success but the brand has now grown to include women’s underwear and men’s socks, thereby proving that there is life after rugby.
Unfortunately, most businesses don’t use their websites effectively. Often confusing customers with too much information and a poor call to action which results in low lead generation.
Watson Ferguson has developed a number of websites for brands using a proven linear approach and global best practices. Built around a clear marketing objective, a fluid user experience, considered design and brand-centric copy, these websites have become hard-working tools for our clients.
To view a few examples of our work, please select the links below.
Please get in touch to discuss your brand, to see how we can help. After all, if you win, we win.
Unit 50, Roeland Square
Drury Lane
Gardens
Cape Town
8001