Interview with Leapfrog CEO Rob Bannochie PART 1 ✽

Hi Rob, Could you describe your company and what position you currently hold?

Leapfrog was established in 2005 and I'm Rob Bannochie the CEO of Leapfrog, I have a partner called Engy Youssef and she runs Dubai & the Golf operation which we began in 2010. We started as 4 people and now we are 35 people in Cairo and there's another 7 people in Dubai and then we have a number of scattered individuals who assist us with our working on The Gulf areas, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon and various bits and pieces up to Algeria and Morocco. And then we have other individuals who assist us with our working in some African countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, Because we have a lot of clients that actually want to work into Africa.

Last year we partnered with a company called "Jiuzhou" in China for event management that’s for inbound work into Egypt from China and obviously it works vice versa to going to china they have nine offices, that’s in its infancy but we are beginning to bear fruit of various people coming looking for opportunities in Egypt, That also opens us up to a bigger network of companies because they have an international network. So again that's also very in fruit because we are able to cross pollinate and talk with other countries, for example we had an event in Austria we were able to contact their representative and we were able to do the event as Leapfrog through the representative company. So we became from being sort of 4 people we are now part of a large network of individuals that can communicate with each other and work on ideas.

We have 6 main areas of operation we do the pure advertising and marketing so we still do television commercials and we still do marketing for companies, We have clients who have been with us for a number of years, we do the art & graphic design, we do event management we have done events for 50 people we have done events for 5000 people so we do the whole range. We also have invested in a 1000 square meter factory in Mansorya, Egypt for fabrication constructions. We do content development so we have the ability to go out and generate content. We have just started a digital technology section so we now can do websites and we have the ability to do applications in various bits and pieces and to do campaigns and content creation for social media. 60% of our work is event management. We do a lot of internal branding which falls on the fabrication and art & graphic design, advertising type concepts. 

We work with a lot of multinational clients as ExxonMobil, VMware, Novartis, Bioderma, Sap, Roche, Ixbet, P&G, Nmdc, Carrier, Hp enterprise, Apache, Abbott and Schlindler. 

We are just in the process of launching a new brand of olive oil called "Ziytouna" which will be in the Market this November that will go with a full media campaign which will be television, radio, billboards and social media. 
That's basically the nature of what we do.

Please tell us your story, how did you end up as the CEO of Leapfrog?

My Story is very long; I've got 60 years of things to tell you. I started off doing electronic engineering. I was apparently very good at it. We're talking best part of 40 odd years ago. So this is when there were cathodes and diodes and lots of different technology, it was not as it is today much much simpler yet much more difficult and a lot of electronics and things were not like today. So I started off doing that and I was very lucky to get a brake because I enjoyed doing editing and I became an editor in the United Kingdom for several years working on a number of high profile television commercials and a long form of what they call a video clips and music videos and various bits and pieces. At that point I started to dabble in working in documentary films and I got a lot of corporate clients based in the Middle East. And from that I was asked to come and work a lot more in the Middle East and I married my wife who is Egyptian and we decided to settle in Cairo and I started doing film production and television commercials which was part of my world and then we moved on to the next thing, it was to start some form of production house which we did and that went from a production house I made "Engy" my partner whose business partner and she was working with another multinational company said well why don't we get together and we can make an agency and we have lots of knowledge in the technology sector so we started Leapfrog and moved on from there.
That's how we got here today. So I've been in Egypt for the last 30 years but I've been coming here since late 70s and we do a lot of television commercials for clients in the Gulf and I've been doing that for these recurring clients for a very long time. The thing about what we do is a lot of our clients come back, so we have a lot of people that have been with us for a very long time and that's how it is, we like longevity in a business partnership.

What is one of the latest awards Leapfrog won?

The latest one was from "Design Rush", for us it’s a very simple thing and it just is more of a symbolic of what we've done. We have awards for television commercials and as you can see there are lots of bits and pieces on the walls. I've got awards going back to the mid 80s and stuff for IAEA.
But we are a company that don't look for awards I'm not interested in doing things for awards.
I know a lot of agencies do things for awards, this is a de facto. Well we tend to look at it more in a different way, we are interested in making the client happy and getting him to sell his product. People have forgotten how to sell in Egypt so it's very difficult you know, we're trying to reboot the concept of selling, it's very nice to have a fantastic television commercial or beautiful billboard that nobody understands! Who's going to win an award and it doesn't sell anything, you know it's a trade off now. We have a number of awards; we've been recognized by clients for doing specific things which is good for getting their business on track. That's more of an award to me.

What is the Advertising situation in Egypt compared to the MENA region countries?

Well there are two very distinct areas of operation and that is something that's grown up out of a language and the social aspect. MENA region is split into a bunch of areas which is Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain and then there's Saudi Arabia it is geared towards the market of Saudi Arabia because that's where the vast number of people are and that up until recently has been very "mamnoaa" prohibited because of the religious and cult differences with the rest of the place in terms of women and how life is seen. And Egypt has been another market which is Egypt purely because of the language. People understand the language in both areas but they want to have their own identity. In terms of advertising I believe the market has a massive opportunity and it's not being exploited properly.
In all of the Middle East whether it's MENA or it's Egypt or whatever you want to call it, there's not a real grounding for the local grassroots talent. There's no real serious schooling or any way to learn properly apart from people that have been in the business for a bunch of time and probably are not doing things properly. They can go to America they can go to the UK they can go to France or Germany or wherever and other countries and learn the basics. But when it comes down to it people don't open their eyes when they walk around. My concept is I have two eyes and I can see and that's not being implemented here. We're trying to take ideas that are placed on commercials or any advertising strategy that's done outside. We're not looking to the local flavor in the local field and the whatever. They have been doing lots and lots of funny commercials and things that everybody laughs at but it doesn't really do anything nicely. Plus there is a problem with people in this part of the world whether it's MENA or it's Egypt, have forgotten how to use their language properly, there's very very poor knowledge of the Arabic language. Now I have a way out because I'm English and my knowledge is what I've made it. People who are here automatically go for English and that's a very bad thing. It's when I tell anybody you know when you've gotten the Arabic language you have an asset you can read, you can write, you can type, you can do anything in Arabic. You have a massive asset to people outside. Use it. But the problem is that people don't use the Arabic language properly here. 
You can see Egypt is a slew of jingles and funny songs and in the Gulf area or the MENA region it's a lot of guttural gobbledygook in Arabic, you know. It doesn't mean anything. It's very difficult to understand. So there has to be a marriage.
It's about the language, advertising is about understanding it's about opening our eyes and in the MENA region it's all let's try and do it, the biggest the best the most wonderful the amazing and that's what's being transformed into what's happening here. That's not really the way to go because people need to sell recently.

What changes are happening soon in the advertising field?

Biggest change is the fact that everybody jumped on the digital bandwagon and thinking that the digital bandwagon is going to make things a lot cheaper. And as the technology will evolve, we will find that it will in essence just reallocate budgets from television to online social media platforms and various things. So that just be there will be a major change away from television. I mean a lot of the younger generation now doesn't watch television anymore and they're more glued to their mobile telephones and their laptops. 
I'm very old school I like to watch a big screen and I like to be able to see an image rather than getting up close and personal with it. And you know I hate sitting in a restaurant you've gotten somebody listening to a music video or a bunch of people singing Happy Birthday to you in Arabic or German or whatever It doesn't make sense to me.

The technology will ultimately take over advertising we've seen it in the billboards. There are now some very nice digital billboards around. And I think that is a great way to portray your product. And you've gotten seven seconds or 10 seconds of going past a billboard and you can pick up a good note, once it's a moving image and not just a static image you can actually get the gist of it. And if you do a good media mix and you see it on your Instagram on your Facebook or any social media platform or if you watch the television you remember that you've seen an ad for a specific brand of Real Estate company for example.

There are great moves in the Advertising now, you will be able to rather like the Cambridge Analytic scenario that happened with the British election. You'll be able to really seriously target the group of people you want to access. And I think that information hasn't always been there. It's been there since the day of ivr but nobody really managed to get to grips with it. Now there are programs and applications or whatever you want to do technological things that are able to actually access the right people to see things, so I can put a billboard in "Al Haram" and access the right people I can put an ad on "DMC" that will access the right people at the right time. So we're going to see a lot more of that. Is that going to take the fun out of advertising is that going to make advertising better. I don't know. If the imagery and if the content is there it allow you to sell. There are still a lot of the older generations that like to sit and read a newspaper. I like to sit and read a newspaper. It's quite an interesting thing to do. Newspapers will be there whether they'll be there in abundance. I don't know. When it goes down to advertising in a newspaper is it still a good thing to do? Yes there are some people that you will you reach because it's a de facto whether it's enough people to maintain or to warrant that particular effort. I don't know, I would suspect it is at this moment in time.
Egypt itself is not a country that will fully embrace the technology immediately so there are still a good few years left in the traditional advertising vehicles. So you know as we've seen with the real estate companies billboards are the king. Yet, they're moving now into a lot of online content. Is that the right way for them to go? I don't know. But it is a step in another direction for them.

Generally I would hope that there will be some form of regulation in the way that people are bought into the advertising market. There are lots and lots of startup companies people that have gone to college and whatever who perhaps are moving the advertising market forward and in a certain way maybe it's not particularly the right way at this moment in time. The market is flooded with new companies and new options. Is that good for the business of the client? I don't think it is, because the younger generations need to learn from people who are in the knowledge because that's the best we've got at the moment.

What is Leapfrog best at?

Leapfrog is best at delivering a professional product that will fulfill the needs of the client in every aspect. We can say we are probably best at doing events, we are very schooled in doing events we have done a large number of events but we can't do that without having the rest of the functions around us, because we believe that we are best at doing everything in-house. We don't like to subcontract. We like to have everything at our fingertips so it's easy to move with the needs of the client. It's not about I'll go and bring X Y Z and put it all together, No it's about having everybody there that knows what they're doing whether it's the registration in the event whether it's the branding whether it's the stage construction whether it's the construction of the rolled up banners the lanyard whatever, we want to have our control over it. That's why we need all of the different elements to work together. We can say we're very good. We have a team of designers that are very good in terms of following corporate guidelines because that's what we've grown up with; they understand how to follow a guideline which is very important in the corporate world. 

When we come to do filming or shooting we have a vast experience of shooting things and seeing things in a different way. We might not be the "Taralamlam" things that you see on the television and shooting but we can do something that will sell or will make the image of the client good in front of the customer or the consumer or whoever it is that is viewing it.

We pride ourselves on delivering on time we have a great wealth of ideas that we're willing to explore and utilize with various clients, and it's just all about our slogan which is "We Create Ideas That Work" so you know whether it's a chicken coming out of an egg or it's a rocket going to the moon. As I said before I have two eyes and I can see you have to look and see what is the best for the client? What is the best way for approaching things? Keep your eyes open and look and understand. I mean LeapFrog is all about understanding the client and that's why we have so many clients that come back and have worked with us for a long period of time because we deliver and we get them good service. We are good at working within a budget, we will come up with our own budget and then the client will tell us it's a lot less and we will work within the budget and we will deliver a top notch design or event or marketing process for whatever.

Part 2 of this interview will be released next week.