Azzagai: No Apologies, Irreverence is Our Brand DNA

Known as FK:G2 in the last seven years of its operation in the industry, this member of the Troyka Holdings Group, led by Yinka Daramola as General Manager, rebranded last week to become Azzagai. Ordinarily, Azzagai is a Swahili word for precision war spear. What is the intended impact of the new company and its trade mark “Mixagination” on the marketing communications industry and its growing clientele in particular? The GM provides the answers in this interview with O’Lekan Babatunde and Yetunde Ogundipe.

Mixagination! What is this concept all about?

It is our way of saying that we are a 360 degree agency. When you are talking about the 360 degree agency, you are talking about a mix of communication. The reason why we use the word Mixagination is the fact that when you talk about imagination, it’s not something you can actually box; when you imagine things you run wild, you don’t box yourself into a corner. For an agency to survive in this trying time, you must go into the depth to come up with ideas that are really out of this world. That is why we said we are an apostle of Mixagination. A mix of imaginations.

Yes it is pertinent to deepen your offerings in this trying period, but must you change your name?

No, that also has its own story. We’ve been around for close to seven years. We started out as an experiential marketing company. Our clients and prospects have known FK:G2 to be an experiential marketing outfit, but there are times when we prospect business and people ask us “but you guys are into experiential marketing, why are you dabbling into advertising?” This is why we thought it fit to redefine who we are because if we keep on preaching that we are a through-the-line agency using the name FK:G2, there probably will not be any credibility. This is why we decided to re-launch and let the whole world know what we do.

Now as distinct from experiential, what does Azzagai do and what fires your young team?

With a mission to annihilate the enemy which is the status-quo, we do everything that creates an in-road into creating lasting consumer experience all by our mixagination. These include advertising and interactive brand experience. We are an irreverent kingdom, a clan of urbane spirits, innovation is always our watchword. For us, business is fun but it is still business. We value new thinking, innovation and camaraderie. We constantly move the world. Status-quo is the enemy of this clan. We are fired by the vision to become a universally acclaimed ideas engine room that consistently outstrips the client’s (consumers) and brand owner’s expectations.

No doubt Azzagai is an African name but certainly not Nigerian. Is there any relationship with a foreign agency?

No, there is no foreign relationship and people are quick to ask why Azzagai? We actually pride ourselves as an agency of Africa origin. This is because we do not want to limit ourselves to being a Nigerian company. So we decided to pick a name from Africa. That is why we go by that name.  

Azzagai is a precision spear, used during war and it kind of epitomizes our values here. We are very precise with our communication efforts and that is why we are convinced the name is actually ours. Talking about the nature of the name itself, we are very irreverent; that is the DNA of Azzagai. We have no apology about going native. We believe the name will set us apart from the pack. Our irreverence and other virtues – tonic needed for new impactful thinking in marketing communications – will set us apart from the competition.

What do you expect from this rebranding exercise?

We tried to bring together our clients and prospects to this event basically to give them an insight into who we are now. We hope that we have properly started defining ourselves this evening. We expect that we will get results. Clients and prospects will begin to see us in our new light and get to know our brand personality which is now a lot more deepened. And we believe that now is the time to act. Long before we even decided on the unveiling ceremony, we touched base with our clients letting them know our intentions.

What is the new brand personality of Azzagai?

I would say that we are friendly and irreverent. That is one thread that virtually cuts across everything that we do and virtually everybody that will be part of this company.

Major full service agencies are scaling down due to the heavy burden of cost. Don’t you think Azzagai’s claim to 360 degree communication may be out of fashion?

When we say we do 360 degree communication that is not to say we do public relations and some other stuff. What we do is Above the Line (ATL), experiential marketing and viral marketing. These are the three areas in which we concentrate. Getting close to and interacting with the consumers is what our clients want and that we will deliver with precision. The new media is our forte. Here we say we support desire with fact, giving authority to brands, making them able to touch lives in the most sensitive ways through mixagination- its simply mediamix plus imagination.