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RD Congo: Pygma Group Sets the Tone
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n an expanding market for advertising and communication, creativity makes all the difference. In this domain, Pygma Group sets the tone.
With a turnover of approximately 15 million dollars (11.6 million euros), around sixty young and trendy employees, and an impressive portfolio of clients… Pygma Communication and its subsidiaries are thriving. The “up-and-coming comms company” has set up its headquarters near the Congo River, in La Gombe, in the unusual setting of a former Onatra warehouse. The premises feature a studied sobriety, with just the right mix of red and anthracite grey, reflecting the company’s slogan (“Your ads, dull or Pygma-nated?”), and a calm atmosphere that allows the team—graphic designers, creatives, and advertising heads—to work peacefully, their eyes fixed on their computer screens.
Range
Created by three Congolese, a Rwandan, and a South African, the company employs 200 people. Pygma Communication is part of the galaxy of companies within Pygma Group, a holding company born in South Africa at the initiative of three Congolese from the DRC, a Rwandan, and a South African. Pygma Group, which employs over 200 people just in South Africa and the DRC, operates in various sectors: management consulting (Pygma Consulting), real estate (Oxyprop – construction), finance (Pygma Investments), and communication (Pygma Communication). Besides its operations in the DRC and South Africa, the group is also present in the United States.
In Kinshasa, Pygma Communication, operational since 2004, comprises several departments or autonomous companies, including Pygma Advertising, Pygma PR, Impact Media, Exo, Seven Events, and Sims Production, which cover almost the entire communication and advertising chain: public relations, event design and management, image creation, audiovisual production, media planning consultancy, sales and purchasing of advertising space and billboards, etc. This wide range of services, products, and offerings is delivered to an extensive client base: mobile network operators, banks, mining companies, car dealerships, agri-food businesses… and several institutions, such as the Congolese Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), for which Pygma created the logo, the Steering Committee for the Reform of State-Owned Enterprises (Copirep), and the General Directorate of Taxes, for which it designed the campaigns. However, the agency does not work with political clients.
One of the group’s strengths is the production of audiovisual advertorials and other productions that have caught the attention of Congolese TV viewers, such as the reality TV show Miss Vodacom and the Primus beer advertisement (one of Bralima’s brands).
Competition
With the increasing number of businesses in the DRC, along with more products being offered to a growing number of consumers who are also more likely to be enticed, the advertising and communication market is rapidly expanding. Other agencies are emerging, including Creat’in, Agressive, CMCT FCB, Divo, and Dispromalt. However, as Melissa Lubanzadio, the company’s client services director, explains, Pygma Communication—which also operates in Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon, and Rwanda—is one of the market leaders.
Nevertheless, in order to maintain and expand its position, the company must develop new products. “We want to have a greater presence in the segment of written media, such as company brochures and activity reports,” insists Patrick Pakonss, a music enthusiast well-known in the local audiovisual world. Another sector the agency seeks to dominate is the sale of billboards. “Outdoor advertising is growing increasingly outside of La Gombe. The governorate is restructuring it. A commission has been set up with experts and the Federation of Enterprises to regulate and standardise it.” It’s a lucrative niche, even though prices are lower in the city than in La Gombe, “where the average price per square metre is 25 dollars,” explains Jean-Michel Pépé Yamungu, head of public relations at Pygma. A promising opportunity to spice up the group’s turnover.