“We believe in leveraged thinking for our clients, but to truly live it we felt it necessary to create our own stand-alone companies that could build on our communication strategies and further assist our clients’ growth efforts,” says Joe Public CEO, Gareth Leck.

“The two new agencies will be managed and operated independently from Joe Public, but will be provided with strategic and channel planning by the main agency. This approach offers our existing clients seamless integration between the specialist companies and the main agency, and leverages one of the strengths of the agency; strategic planning. It also allows for the leadership of the new companies to develop their own personal relationships with our clients. The beauty of the structure is our new companies have started with a host of blue chips so they have a great foundation to work with,” adds Leck.

Joe Public Ignite will be headed by Tiaan van Jaarsveldt and creative director, Pippa Capstick. Joe Public Ignite's philosophy is summed up by its ‘Igniting growth’ positioning: "Igniting growth means leaving behind the expected below-the-line structures to create growth platforms that change the category’s playing fields. This takes quality thinking and creativity,” adds Van Jaarsveldt. “In fact, we passionately believe that the quality of our clients’ ROI depends on how much our thinking can elevate their brand’s influence in its category, through quality interactions and marketing innovations. We call this Return On Ignition.”

“Ignition thinking is the understanding that below-the-line doesn’t have to be a slave to short-term imperatives. It’s our belief that below-the-line is a space where long-term growth platforms are created. We know a quick fix is unlikely to create sustainable growth,” adds Capstick. Joe Public Ignite has since had a dream start working on existing Joe Public clients like Anglo American, Foodcorp, Incolabs, Colgate Palmolive and Jet, and winning a number of pitches on brands like Unilever and SAB.

Maciek Michalski has headed up the award-winning brand design division at Joe Public since 2006, but it operated as a supporting service and sat within the main agency. A decision was recently made by the partners at Joe Public to open a separate brand design company and Joe Public Shift was born.

Says Michalski: “Our design solutions are based on sound strategic insights and ideas explored in collaboration with Joe Public’s strategic department. We believe brand design has a very significant part to play in the journey towards growth. To this end we subscribe to leveraged thinking, which means that at every step of the road we make conscious design choices that positively assist in delivering on our clients’ business strategies.”

Next year will see Joe Public launch a specialist PR business, as well as a digital offering on the same principle as Joe Public Shift and Joe Public Ignite.

“We have set ourselves the challenge of growing Joe Public, but we are not chasing growth at all costs. Rather, we see Joe Public’s growth as the end result of our strategy to grow our people and our clients,” concludes Leck.