Ogilvy launches Social.Lab South Africa E-commerce offering

Ogilvy today launched Social.Lab, its Social media performance division with a two-hour conference at the Ogilvy campus in Bryanston, titled “How social media is fueling the e-commerce economy”.

Internationally, Social.Lab is the fastest-growing company in the Ogilvy network, combining creative content ideas with smart paid-media targeting to drive business results. Social.Lab operates in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Singapore, Dubai and Bucharest, with four additional markets in the pipeline, servicing clients like Philips, Nespresso, Chanel, IBM and BMW.

“The Social.Lab partnership is the latest step in Ogilvy’s journey to support clients in their digital transformation,” said Ogilvy CEO Alistair Mokoena. “Social.Lab offers tools that combine strategy, content, media and performance. It is transparent and measurable, using data-driven AI to provide relevant content to audiences and encourage awareness, consideration and purchase. We believe that with impactful ideas we will enable our partners to make their marketing budgets stretch further.”

As part of the launch process, Ogilvy will provide diagnostic audit resources for its clients to pave the way to a sophisticated data-driven social media approach with measurable effects on business objectives.

Christophe Chantraine has been appointed managing director of Social.Lab South Africa, having relocated from the Ogilvy Social.Lab in Brussels, where he was head of media. Social.Lab will operate in Cape Town and Johannesburg, with a team of 18 media experts combining Social.Lab’s paid-social expertise with the creative excellence of Ogilvy South Africa.

“Social.Lab will be a 100% integrated offer, benefiting as much as possible from proprietary know-how, methodologies and technologies developed by Social Lab around the world,” said Chantraine.

Yves Baudechon, co-founder and President of Social.Lab Worldwide said that, with 15 agencies in 10 markets, and 400 experts, the company’s network is expanding rapidly, and South Africa is an ideal gateway to the African continent.

“Digital is exploding,” he said. “Today, 86% of South Africans have a mobile phone and represent a vast ocean of opportunity for savvy marketers. Social media is not just another digital channel. It is the new mass advertising. We see creative content as the engine of modern marketing, and effective distribution as the fuel. Paid social media is key to this.”