Y&R South Africa and Africa announced today that Y&R Advertising and VML have partnered with leading multi-disciplinary communications agency, Creative Edge Ltd. Based in Nairobi, this agency will be renamed Creative Y&R and will become one of the network’s three centres of excellence, serving as a hub alongside South Africa and Nigeria.
“As a network hub, it’s essential for Creative Y&R to offer, and be experts on a wide mix of disciplines, to provide brand development for its clients and support its smaller regional agencies,” explained Yossi Schwartz, chairman Y&R. Established by CEO Prital Patel in 1995, starting out as a design studio, Creative Edge evolved into an integrated communications agency, bolstering its offering to include advertising, digital, brand development, media planning and buying, strategy, packaging and custom publishing.
“We are building a network that shares best practice through guidelines, structure, format, philosophy, management depth and commitment to development and growth, plus the transfer of knowledge, systems and tools. These tools cover strategy and planning, production and asset management, as well as knowledge tools and services,” Yossi added.
Creative Y&R is a strong partner for Y&R Advertising, VML and the East African market, boasting an enviable portfolio of work across brands such as Crown Paints, Oil Libya, EABL, Planet Yogurt, Kapa Oil, Daawat, Broadways, Cadbury GSK and Google amongst others.
Under Prital’s leadership, Creative Y&R will be responsible for the development of the East African region, and the resources at Creative Y&R, as well as Y&R South Africa, will offer support to those agencies. “Much like Nigeria,” says Yossi, “Kenya is one of the most energetic markets in sub-Saharan Africa, influenced by the growing trend of urbanisation in Africa and the innovation of high-growth markets. What’s more, according to the PWC Kenyan entertainment and media outlook: 2013-2017 Report, “the forecast annual growth rate for the entertainment and media market in Kenya in the next five years is 16.3% – one of the highest in the world”.
Creative Edge’s existing digital arm is called Qube Ltd, which will form part of this partnership too. And through this partnership Qube will have access to VML, a leading digital agency that’s part of Y&R Advertising, and serves as the network’s digital backbone.
At last year’s Cannes Festival of Creativity, Y&R was ranked the fourth global network for a second consecutive year. Creative Y&R will retain the 70-odd staff employed by Creative Edge.
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