EXCLUSIVE: Halo and Demographica launch new agency with Mike Stopforth at the helm

Today, Halo and Demographica announce a new specialist agency, Second Rodeo]], headed up by Mike Stopforth (left). Dean Oelschig, managing partner and founder of Halo (right) says they will work as a group but ultimately, each agency will be an individual specialist

“We will work as a group, across the group, and share talent and resources as needed, but ultimately, each agency will be an individual specialist,” explains Dean Oelschig, managing partner and founder of Halo.

Second Rodeo, named after the fact that this is not Stopforth’s nor Oelschig’s first rodeo at launching a new agency, has already started work with several clients, including Auto&General and Telesure Holdings.

Oelschig says that for a long time, Halo has doubled down on being a brand agency.

“We do not want to be a 360-degree agency or an integrated agency. We believe in a world of amalgamated specialists, where agencies are slightly smaller, have better talent and client relationships, and are better at what they do.

“We don't want to do the ‘short’ stuff. We don't want to do the bottom-of-the-funnel work. Primarily, we want to be a specialist brand agency.”
However, he says clients have asked them to do this type of work.

This was about a year ago. “So, we began investigating and then we started chatting to Mike, and long story short, here we are, and on Thursday, 8 May, launching another agency.”

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The case for specialist agencies

Stopforth, who sold Cerebra to WPP in 2018, is extremely experienced at starting, building, growing and running a successful agency.

He says that in his two decades in marketing, there has always been a debate in the industry.

“First, it was above the line vs. below the line, then it was ‘online’ vs. ‘traditional,’ and now it is brand vs. performance.

He says we, as the advertising industry, modify the debate to suit universal trends. He further argues that this, in part, is what has led agencies to become one-stop shops, but that this can dilute some of the efficacy of what they offer.

“While it is amazing for clients to be able to go to one place to solve all their problems, (being a 360-degree offering) makes it increasingly difficult to differentiate.

But specialist agencies create really deep expertise. “This is what we tried to do in Cerebra, which became an interesting advantage and differentiator.”

He has found that clients tend to feel that they need to compromise deep subject matter expertise for economies of scale, or economies of scale for deep subject matter expertise.

This is a constant source of frustration for clients.

“It is also something Dean and I have wrestled with over the years. We have always believed that there had to be a better way, other than creating some monolithic giant offering that does everything.”

He describes the Halo and Second Rodeo grouping as a networked offering. “Like a selection of SWAT teams, rather than the general army.”

Oelschig likens it to a fine-dining chef and a fast-food chef. “You can't have a fast-food chef in a fine dining restaurant, and you can't have a fine dining chef in a fast-food restaurant. We probably could, but you're paying a lot more for what you need.”

This is what has resonated not only with each other, but also with clients.

“You can do the most extraordinary positioning work and do no rollout whatsoever, limiting the impact of that positioning work, because you haven't maximised the effectiveness of that over time.

“Or you can do a very average brand positioning job and invest in extraordinarily roll-out and performance and still have a sub-par result, or worse have your customers' trust, level of affinity, and care reduced because the original (brand) product,” explains Stopforth.

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Inspired by The Long and Short of It

So, what do they mean when they talk about the long and the short?

The Long and Short of It is a book by Les Binet and Peter Field.

Mark Ritson, well-known in the marketing and branding world, is a huge advocate of their book.
He calls Binet and Field’s book the most important marketing book of the last 15 years.

The book resonated with Oelschig. “We have borrowed a lot of the theory in that book in positioning Halo.”

The theory is that there is a marketing funnel and awareness, and salience sits at the top of the funnel (the long) with conversion, efficiencies and optimisation at the bottom (the short).

“Halo is essentially at the top of the funnel where brand sits - brand awareness, brand salience, brand equity, and brand growth - as can be seen by the work we do for clients like Auto&General, Capital Legacy, Pineapple and RMB.”

This is the long, work that will endure for many years, classic brand advertising and communication that builds an emotional connection.

Oelschig adds that the brand piece gives results for a long time. “Then you add retail or conversion pieces – or the short - and get spikes. But if you are only doing performance without brand, it drops off. You need both. Add conversion work to a salient brand, and the conversion work becomes more efficient..”

95 – five rule

The 95 – five rule states that 95% of your market is not in the market today. (This is a generalisation and differs from client to client.)

The job of brand (the long) is to build the relationship with the 95% not in market today so that when a consumer enters the five percent (the short), your brand is salient and they have an emotional connection with it, and, therefore the work needed to convert those customers to buy from you is a much easier job.

Second Rodeo will focus specifically on the 5% conversion of consumers when they are in the market for a product.

“Dean's job is getting the customer to the line; our job is to get them over the line,” says Stopforth.

He says this is less about the channel and more about influencing behaviour through creative communication.

“It's about what type of behaviour we're trying to influence, depending on where the customer is in the journey.”

But one is not more important than the other. “The most important word in the The Long and the Short of It title is “and” because when you do the two together, that is when you see the best results.

Dean says by launching Second Rodeo, they can now do both.

“Your effectiveness return is about 4.8 times your investment if you do both properly, and that's on average.”

More and more marketers are starting to understand the long and short of it. They are beginning to practice it; we have seen it with our clients, he adds.

“The long multiplies the short, that the efficacy of the brand positioning, work that's done upfront,” he adds.

“That's where we sometimes get lost as marketing owners and brand custodians. We figure doing more is more, so we'll get more results. But we fail to understand that there is a DNA multiplier underneath that we're ignoring.”

This is why he says it cannot be one or the other. It must be both the long and the short.