Most agency transformation stories start with something new: maybe a new unit, a new tool, or a new pitch. Andreas Shifotoka starts with what's already working.
As Executive Lead in Digital, Growth and Enablement at The Odd Number, he's tasked with connecting the agency's strategy, creative, media, social and technology capabilities. Having worked across more than 20 African markets, he talks to media update about how those disciplines can work as a single workflow, what working across Africa has taught him about market difference and where technology fits alongside creative expertise.
Your role has been described as one that unlocks opportunity. What does that look like when you're considering an agency's existing capabilities, teams and client relationships?
It starts with understanding what already works before trying to build anything new. The Odd Number has strong cultural and creative capabilities, talented people and relationships that have been built over time. My job is to understand how we can connect and amplify those strengths.
Sometimes the opportunity is a new capability, sometimes it's a smarter way of working, and sometimes it's simply giving a great team the right tools and space to do more. You don't rebuild the house because you want to change or add to the furniture.
A key part of your mandate is connecting capabilities that have traditionally sat in different parts of an agency. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for agencies to create a unified workflow, and what can marketers gain when those disciplines work more closely together?
The biggest opportunity is to stop thinking of strategy, creative, media, social, digital and technology as separate handovers and start thinking of them as one journey.
When those disciplines work together earlier, ideas become more connected to how people actually discover, experience and act on brands. For marketers, that means fewer versions of the same idea travelling through the agency and more opportunities to create work that is consistent, useful and culturally relevant wherever people encounter it.
You've worked across more than 20 African markets. What has that experience taught you about the danger of applying a one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing and growth?
Africa has many shared truths, but our markets have very different rhythms. Working across the continent has meant navigating different languages, media habits, regulations, payment systems, consumer behaviours and cultural cues. Sometimes you have to get on the ground, listen, research — research again — and then co-create with the people who actually live the culture.
At the heart of The Odd Number's philosophy is Liberation. Liberate ourselves, liberate brands, ideas, social and the market. That emancipation gives us the freedom to participate in culture rather than force ourselves into it.
You don't want to come back to South Africa and decide you're creating a third national anthem because Sister Bettina isn't doing the things. You will learn nicely!
The lesson is simple: understand the culture, participate in it and let the people help shape the work.
For me, that is the privilege of working across Africa. You don't arrive knowing everything. You arrive ready to listen, learn and build something that belongs there.
You place emphasis on integrating intelligent systems within agencies. Where and how can technology genuinely strengthen creative and marketing work without it becoming a shortcut for human expertise?
Technology should take care of the things that consume our time, not the things that make us human.
I'm very excited about AI and intelligent systems helping us research faster, find patterns, automate repetitive work and get ideas into the world more efficiently. But forgive me for hinting back at the old school. Nowadays everyone wants to be great, but not everyone wants to be good first.
That's one of my concerns with new technology. The tools can make you faster, but they don't automatically give you the fundamentals. You still need to understand the audience, the brief, the idea, the craft and why something should exist in the first place.
The best technology should make good people better, not make people think they're already great.
Growth is typically reduced to a conversation about winning more business or increasing revenue. What does a more holistic definition of growth look like from an agency perspective — especially when it comes to creating value for both clients and employees?
Revenue matters, let's not pretend it doesn't, but I see growth as the combination of people, partnership, capability, reputation and commercial performance.
It starts with our people growing, our capabilities getting stronger, our clients seeing real value and our reputation doing some of the talking for us. Great people create iconic work. iconic work creates value for clients. And when clients see that value, they want to keep building with you. That's the kind of growth I'm interested in.
If we spoke again a year from now, what would need to have changed at The Odd Number for you to say that this role has genuinely made a difference, and what lessons could the industry take from that transformation?
I'd want to see people owning the new ways of working rather than being told to use them. I'd want to see stronger digital and social capabilities, smarter systems, better collaboration and clients seeing the difference in our output and delivery.
We've already started seeing what that can look like. We recently built a content generation tool for one of our clients that can produce around 200 assets in 5 to 7 minutes. That's not about making more work for the sake of it. It's about taking template-driven, repetitive work off people's plates, so they have more time to craft, think and create.
And hopefully, we'd be getting invited into more rooms and walking out as part of the conversation, part of the solution or, dare I say, the hosts.
If our people are more enabled, our clients are more invested and our work is creating more conversation for the agency, then I'd know we've built something that can keep growing beyond me.
The lesson for the industry is simple: you don't always need to reinvent an agency. Sometimes you need to understand what makes it special, connect the right pieces and give good people the freedom and tools to make the pots bigger.
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*Image courtesy of contributor and Canva