In 2019 a group of friends, frustrated by their jobs in different professions, quit and started their own advertising agency. Today, they are the faces behind online marketing campaigns for well-known brands, including motor company Hyundai and social media platform TikTok.
Kea Molobi, Sipho Mgudlwa, Hangwani Mahosi and Charlotte Mathe started the Vibe Experiential Agency, looking to disrupt the marketing and advertising industry while offering opportunities to young people.
The Vibe Experiential Agency offers creative marketing and advertising solutions in digital, experiential and culinary spaces. While the company started as an advertising agency, it has grown to provide more services. “Every brand wants to entrench itself within culture, be it black or youth culture. Whatever that looks like to them, we’re the people who will take that and help them resonate with their audience. We create vibes that move the culture forward,” said Mgudlwa, Vibe’s CEO.
Mgudlwa and Mahosi joined Vibe full-time in 2019. While this was the beginning of a successful business, the founders also faced some issues. Mgudlwa said the main issues they faced were being visible to clients and finding places where they could secure opportunities.
Despite working with some of South Africa’s biggest brands, being recognised as a new agency has been difficult. “Because of this, we’ve learned that if we want the pie, we’re going to have to share the pie. This is why we leverage our relationships with other agencies. Collaborating has allowed us to find opportunities that would otherwise have been out of reach for us,” said Mgudlwa.
Since the agency works with some top brands, including frozen foods giant McCain, Molobi, one of its founders, doubles as executive chef to help prepare appealing dishes for marketing campaigns. She said they grappled with the financial sacrifices that come with owning a business, as the growth of a company took time.
“Half of the time, it’s us taking a salary cut because there’s other things that need to be covered. It’s a big sacrifice; you need to learn and you must know all those nice things could come 10 years down the line.”
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For Mathe. Vibe’s head of digital and social media, taking up a leadership role as a young person was something she had to learn to navigate. Mathe said while “learning the tricks of the trade”, she also had to step into a management role she was unfamiliar with.
“You’re constantly wondering if you are treating people well, if you’re not overwhelming the other employees, and whether they actually take you seriously because you’re a young person in a leadership role.”
Vibe hopes to be a work-from-home company, and Mahosi said the global pandemic had helped accelerate its growth and adopt a work-from-home system. McCain is one of its first clients.
Five years later, the company employs eight people on a permanent basis, while hiring others on a project-by-project basis. It has also opened a brick-and-mortar office but maintains a working-from-home system for its staff.
Working with brands such as MrD, Takealot, Woolworths, Burger King, McDonald’s, Nestlé, international e-commerce company Shein and the South African National Blood Service, Vibe has been labelled a specialist in the marketing and advertising sectors.
The agency is also one of five of Tik Tok’s Creative Exchange partnership. According to Vibe, the social media platform labelled them the top agency in the country for retail and e-commerce brands and for performance, traffic and product sales briefs.
Looking at the future of Vibe, Mahosi said the long-term goal was to grow the brand locally and expand into other parts of the continent. He said they wanted to ensure that they had employees in every part of Africa. “I want to have a solid client base in the country, with headquarters here and then spread out. We want to create a communications network across the continent, from Cape to Cairo.”
While the intention of the company was to tap into the international market, Mahosi said its goal was to reach out to international brands and help them navigate Africa.
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