LEADERSHIP
AGENCY OF THE YEAR - MEDIUM (2025)
A standout year. - Halo
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Best of Show
| Title: | A standout year. |
|---|---|
| Brand: | Halo |
| Agency Name or Internal: | Halo |
| Agency: | Halo |
| CCO: | Dean Oelschig |
| ECD: | Coenie Grebe |
| Creative Director: | Kelly Brazier, Joanne Clarke, Gareth O'Callaghan |
| Business Unit Director: | Talia Backos |
| Executive Summary: | Over the past 24 months, Halo has emerged as one of South Africa’s most ambitious and innovative agencies. With a bold new business model, we reimagined the agency’s role and created a distinct positioning, “making standout brands and brands stand out”. We fully committed to specialising as a long-term brand agency across strategy, design and creative. The result has seen extraordinary growth, creative effectiveness, and deep cultural impact. Brand campaigns don’t happen every day. And on that note, if our model was going to support our ambitions, we had to move away from on-going retainers. Since 2023 we removed timesheets from the agency and focused on a retained-client model, charging value-based pricing for highly strategic projects that endure. We want clients to buy the quality of the thinking, not the time spent delivering the work. Inspired by Binet & Field’s “long and short” framework, we have successfully positioned Halo as a “long” agency, a specialist in emotional, brand-building work. The agency is now led by a diverse team (71% women), and since 2023, 30% of the agency is Black women-owned, reflecting a powerful transformation strategy driven from the top. Growth That’s More Than Just Numbers: Halo has achieved a staggering 380% revenue growth over the last two and a half years, with a 44% increase in the latest year (Feb ’25) and on track for another 40% during the remainder of 2025. In that time, we’ve won 16 significant new clients, including RMB, Klipdrift, FNB Speedpoint, PSG, Cars.co.za, Spark Schools and Betway, while maintaining a 96% client retention rate. Our five longest-standing clients continue to grow with us, underscoring the sustainability of our “retained client” model. Our strategic pricing, coupled with a commitment to excellence, has also yielded a peak profit margin of 36% and an average of 25%. Halo’s decision to be a “long” agency was not just a creative one, it was an imperative to create meaningful and enduring work. By changing our billing model we are able to focus on quality over quantity and if the output should work for a longer period then it’s logical that we get longer to make the work. In turn it’s given our teams time and headspace to create effective, emotionally resonant work. Our success has enabled us to invest in our people, clients and industry, launching Conspicuous in 2024, an independent marketing event for senior CMOs, invested from 60% of Halo’s 2024 annual profit. This event brought global voices Mark Ritson, Adam Morgan and Nick Asbury to the South African stage, proving that independent agencies can drive big change. Our continued commitment to improving the marketing industry continues with our 2025 Conspicuous event about to take place in June. Halo was ranked 3rd independent agency at Loeries, won the Grand Effie and 2 Gold Effies (of 4 awarded) and was crowned Financial Mail AdFocus Small and Overall Agency of the Year in 2024. |
| Additional Credits: | Amber Mackeurtan - MD |
| Additional Credits: | Shanon Leicher - Head of Production |
