OMD South Africa (SA) has announced the appointment of the general manager Litha Vimbi. According to the agency, Vimbi will take up her position in September and her role will be to support Julio Rodrigues, MD of OMD South Africa, whose responsibilities within the international OMD company have grown.
OMD SA leads the billings for the 16
th year in a row in 2021. This is according to Research Company Evaluating the Media Agency Industry (RECMA), which says that the market has an estimated total market of USD$2.7-billion in terms of overall activity volume.
After a slow 2020, the market is showing green shoots and the potential to keep growing in the high double digits. OMD says that it is applying a new approach — together with new senior hires and appointments — to ensure it stays a step ahead and maximises these opportunities for its clients.
With the market alive with demand for targeted buying and planning billings of traditional media, online paid media and fee-based services, OMD adds that it has improved its market share to 19.4% ahead of the 11.8% for second place.
"We're working hard on data-centric innovations to help companies navigate complexity by reading critical market signals early," says Rodrigues. "This will not only grow OMD's edge even further in the market but position our clients ahead of their competition in the media space."
Vimbi's senior appointment comes in the form of Sifiso Pule, who has been appointed as strategy and innovation director. Pule joins specialist division leadership partners:
- Karl Vermeulen
- Gary Rice
- Leilani Visser
- Conraad Kakebeeke, and
- Estelle Taljaard.
"The announcement that OMD SA has led the billings for the 16
th year in a row and the decision to strengthen our executive team indicates that OMD has the potential to keep growing. We are confident that our new appointments will translate into OMD being able to broaden its reach into accounts and markets that it has previously not fully explored," adds Rodrigues.
"The appointment of Vimbi is significant in many ways. She is the first person to fill the newly-created position. She also makes company history by being the first black woman to assume what is an important role at our Johannesburg office," says Rodrigues.
Rodrigues adds, "We were proud to be able to fill this function internally, which speaks volumes about the significant insights, experience and value to our team and clients that Vimbi brings and will continue to drive in the years ahead."
OMD is entering a new era in South Africa, according to Rodrigues.
Rodrigues says, "We are moving forward into a future filled with challenges for the advertising and media industries. Over the next few months, with Vimbi and Sifiso adding new perspectives, we will be developing new internal and external strategies and working towards creating added value for our clients."
"We have further improved our position by winning accounts that include Discovery, SA Tourism and Diageo in 2020. Oetker, Philips and British Airways selected us as partners in 2021. Increases in ad spending by several major clients as they regained momentum after the pandemic further cemented our position," Rodrigues adds.
Rodrigues says, "Overall, the OMG / Omnicom, of which we and PHD are members, retained its leadership position locally, with 31.2% of the market recording total activity worth about USD$846-million in 2021, up from USD$739-million in 2020, reflecting a growth rate of 14%."
Recent industry wins for OMD include the following:
- AdWeek's Global Media Agency of the Year
- MediaPost’s Holding Company of the Year, and
- the Cannes Lions Media Network of the Year 2022.
A recent report by leading international research company, Forrester has scored OMD the highest possible scores across the following categories:
- Retail media
- Commerce
- Audience
- Intelligence and Insights
- Optimisation
- Operations, and
- Innovation Road Map.
This is while the latest report by research company, COMvergence ranks OMD as the number one media agency worldwide. This marks the fifth consecutive number-one ranking for OMD Worldwide since COMvergence published its first global billings report in 2017.
"We are immensely proud of our successes, and the proactive changes we're making will undoubtedly maintain the prosperity for ourselves and for our clients," says Rodrigues.
"Backed by the Omnicom Worldwide network, we have the resources, insights and capabilities necessary to provide strategic leadership to all of our new and existing clients. We look forward to evening more exciting work in the months to come," concludes Rodrigues.
For more information, visit
www.omd.com. You can also follow OMD South Africa on
Facebook,
Twitter or on
Instagram.