Mambo gets Smart

First Published In: B&T Magazine Date: June 18, 2004 Author: Danielle Veldre Comment by: Karl Treacher

For the first time in its 20-year history the iconic Australian brand has appointed a full-time advertising agency, Smart. Mambo started as a surf wear label by Dare Jennings in 1984 with a philosophy of combining art, politics and humour in its clothing.

The brand has been a study not only in brand capital, but in building a brand without an advertising agency.

So the obvious question is why after all this time appoint one?

According to Mambo CEO Sarah Paykel, it's time to rethink the brand.

"We're looking to refresh the brand-make it more relevant to the youth market," she told B&T. In 2000 Mambo was bought out by the Gazal Group-which also markets brands such as Van Heusen and Kookai-and has recently bought back international Mambo licences to better manage the brand and its attendant communications.

As of this year Mambo had annual sales of $183.5m, according to Gazal, assets worth $128m and around 548 staff.

Paykel said while the Mambo brand appealed to a variety of consumers, the aim of appointing Smart was to work on the brand to re-focus it to its original core target group.

"Because Mambo is 20 years old this year we have a wide spread of customers-they might be 15 or 50, it doesn't matter, but the core focus is the 16-24 year-old surfer, male or female."

She said Mambo had been able to grow quickly when the brand launched in the 1980s without a traditional advertising agency arrangement because its positioning was very different, and also because the market was much less cluttered with surf wear brands than it is now.

Founder of Brand Behaviour Karl Treacher said it made sense for Mambo to appoint an agency now because it had been "in the wilderness" for some time.

"Its [initial market] was a sort of semi-conservative, post baby-boomer, pre-generation X consumer," Treacher said.

"[Appointing] an ad agency will probably do it a hell of a lot of good. Smart is probably a really good choice. You wouldn't see Mambo with a Saatchi & Saatchi or a McCann-Erickson."

Paykel said there won't be a new campaign for Mambo until the new year, and the company instead would work with Smart to re-create the brand from the ground up.

"For the first six months we will be focusing on delivering on a grass-roots basis and delivering on the brand promise."

Smart has been working with Mambo on various projects. Smart managing partner Ben Lilley said the relationship between the commpanies grew organically, to the point the agency was retained on a permanent basis.