The duo of Taiwo Agbola, COO and Ndukwe Onuoha, Creative Director both of 7even Interactive has disclosed that the passion for the Advertising profession and raw hunger to positively impact the industry are key factors propelling the agency to record audacious feats at its relatively young age.
According to the duo in a session with the media, the multi-levels award winning agency is able to move from 9th (2016) to 4th position on the 2017 Lagos Advertising & Ideas Festival (LAIF) medal table all within a year all thanks to hard work and passion for the business. “We have a team of young and committed professionals in the agency. They are passionate about what they do. What we have done is to show what we can offer in the marketing communications industry and more important, in building brands along with our clients”.
Recalled that last year we were rated 9th on the table, we sat down and asked ourselves “is that the level we want to play?” We said, “No. We need to push ourselves harder” The result is, this better performance. However, we are not there yet. We are aiming for the top of the ladder, explained the COO.
According to the Creative director, the agency’s 4 Gold, 5 Silver and 7 Bronze medals won the 2017 LAIF were delivered courtesy its works for Uber, the digital campaign for Mainone among other clients. The agency’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaign tagged the Frixion Vodca campaign, an anti-rape campaign was also generously awarded.
Giving the rationale for the CSR campaign, Taiwo explained, “We felt there was need to sensitize the community in which we operate and the country at large on the evils of rape by advising people to seek consent first before sexual relationship”. To gain traction at the teaser stage, the agency created a fictional brand called Frixion Vodca and deployed images and pictures of celebrities, musicians and actors without their consent as models for the Frixion brand.
The agency was inundated with queries and risked being sued for lack of consent and “rape”. It apologized while explaining the idea behind the CSR campaign being “a good and worthy cause” as an anti-rape social campaign, most of the “enraged stars” signed up to become the campaign ambassadors and were happy to be associated with the campaign.
“The campaign also won us a bronze at the 2017 Loeries in South Africa making us the only agency in West Africa last year to be awarded any medal at the Loeries”, Taiwo pointed out.
For the duo, “competition is opium; it is what drives the business of advertising”. The truth is whatever industry you play in, if there is no competition, you would be lethargic and this is not good for creativity and business success, he advised.
According to the Creative Director, the good news is that to be creative with regards to advertising agency work, does not depend on what one studied in school. He said, “We are mostly on the lookout for talents who reflect our DNA, there are ample opportunities to learn and develop on the job” adding that the agency is heavy on training aimed at expanding the staff’s horizons. “We look for people who think the way we do as a very young agency, looking at the fun side of issues and being consistently inquisitive.”
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R-L: Taiwo Agboola, COO and Ndukwe Onuoha, Creative Director, 7even Interactive