The Elephant is back in the room. GP&K is reviving Elephant: the world renowned, and formerly most-awarded creative agency. By launching its very own creative boutique, GP&K will be closing the circle on the region’s first holistic offering alongside Kijamii and Good People.
Elephant will be acting as the creative nucleus – a hub for strategic insights and ideas, closely coupled with the social content and digital media offering from Kijamii, while at the same time backed by the global production standards of Good People, and its exclusive pool of directors.
Originally founded by Ali Ali and Maged Nassar in 2009, Elephant quickly rose to fame by winning Agency of the Year, as well as the Dubai Lynx Grand Prix in both Film and Print in its debut year. It moved on to win four Cannes lions, two D&AD pencils, and the Grandprix in Film and Film craft in its second year. In 2011, Elephant was featured at the Cannes lion’s Independent Agency Showcase as one of the top three most exciting shops in the world that year. Almost nine years later, Elephant’s Cannes-winning “Never Say No to Panda” campaign is still the most viewed Arabic TV campaign on Youtube.
“We are bringing back Elephant to challenge the now tired and consumed agency model.” said Ali Ali, “Clients are increasingly looking out for a new offering and a new way of doing things.” He added, “Back then, Elephant was disruptive but perhaps ahead of its time, today it is disruptive and extremely relevant.”
The three shops will remain independent but will work together closely on collaborative projects and a shared pool of clients. Elephant will be leading on all combined GP&K offerings.
“Instead of following an outdated and inefficient process of briefing the agency, then a production house, then another digital agency, we now have a full offering all under one roof,” said Bassem El Hady, “Digitally-fit creative that’s already inline with the Director’s treatment. An agile dynamic product, designed to meet the ever-changing needs of today’s clients,” He added.
The GP&K executive team includes Bassem El Hady and Bahy Abo Elezz who will be managing Kijamii’s digital business, Khalid Zaki will continue to run Good People while Elephant will be led by Amir Adib, who just joined the team this month.
“Elephant is stepping up to fill a very evident market gap,” said Amir Adib, “Today’s brands are forced to choose between the agility yet limited-scope of a lightweight agency, or the full offering of heavyweight giant communication networks,” he added. “Having spent a short stint as a marketer in a leading CPG corporation, I too have faced that problem. With Elephant in the room, that problem no longer exists.” said Adib.
GP&K aims to be the region’s first digitally-informed advertising network. The idea is to fully redefine the traditional ad game. Born out of the merger of Kijamii and Good People in September of 2019, the independent network is here to rethink the way we do advertising in the region. Rewrite and reimagine the rule book, by putting digital first, by challenging the conventional 360 models, and instead, provide and propose modern-day alternatives, new solutions for a brave new era.
