The brand says that at the heart of its successful offering in South Africa is a content hub that services both local and global clients. The team adds that they have built fully dedicated units for clients based in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and Africa to deliver on their four main areas of expertise.

These areas include:
  • Media buying 
  • Creative content
  • SEO, and
  • Intelligence assignments.
The South African office opened in 2018 and is part of the fastest growing business within the wider Ogilvy network. Social.Lab aims to provide digital services for agencies and brands who require reliable, cost-effective and scalable solutions across a range of performance-based, digital marketing specialisations.

It currently has 16 offices around the world and deploys content into over 91 countries for brands, which include:
  • Ikea
  • Philips
  • Nestle
  • Huawei
  • Chanel
  • Vans, and
  • The European Union.
Christophe Chantraine, MD of the South African business, says, "We're excited to see that brands today are seeing value from our services, where creative excellence meets digital performance."

"We believe that a story is only as good as the distribution system that can deliver it to the right audiences, at exactly the right time and in the right place. This is our point of difference and ensures precision in distribution and cross-channel integration," adds Chantraine.

Social.Lab is also currently leading the social commerce expertise inside WPP by using social media in the context of commerce transactions, where social media enables a transactional relationship between customers and advertisers and is powered by the maturation of online shopping, says the brand.

Christophe Chantraine concludes, "By leveraging our international experience managing multimillion-dollar campaigns across social, search, programmatic and Amazon globally, we also implement state-of-the-art practice, technologies and methodologies to benefit a growing number of local South African clients."

To sustain the rapid growth of the agency, Social.Lab had indicated that it is launching a Graduate Training initiative starting in 2021. The new offering will enroll graduates in Cape Town and Johannesburg to teach specialist campaign management skills.

Top-performing candidates will be offered roles in one of the growing number of Social.Lab media hubs.

To find out more about Social.Lab, the application process for the Graduate Training Programme, individuals are encouraged to contact sljob@ogilvy.com.

For more information, visit www.social-lab.eu.