Zebra was founded by Luke Hammersley and Nic Franklin in May 2005. Over a rather warm and very busy summer they came up with the idea that a Management Consultant and a Creative Director / Writer could build a new kind of media business. 

Now, with offices on four continents, a multinational client list and established delivery partnerships with leading creative agencies, the Zebra herd has grown and our service offer broadened. A lot. So, It seems they may have been right.

HOW DID YOU TWO MEET?

LH> Through a mutual friend who now happens to be our CTO. Nic was directing a film and I got involved with the soundscape and composition – I am a musician in my spare time.  I was looking to apply my consulting background in a new space and Nic was keen to move from his job agency side. We set up Zebra.

TELL US ABOUT THE GOD SUIT STORY…

NF> I received a gift of an Egyptian type of male dress a few years back and it became my outfit of choice at Glastonbury for many years, accompanied with massive sunglasses and cowboy hat. I once bumped into Batman and Superman in a beer tent, they looked up and said “There’s God” I gave them a cursory glance tipped my hat, saying, “Morning boys”  on route to the bar. Luke tells this story more than I do. 

LH> Creativity and personality is baked into everything we do, just as much as being driven to be professional and successful – that’s why I like that story. Our first few board meetings took place wandering about at Glastonbury, brainstorming what we could achieve… that’s how obsessed with making this company brilliant we were, and still are.

DID YOU IMAGINE ZEBRA WOULD TURN OUT THE WAY IT HAS?

LH> Yes and no, we started as a pure production company then built edit suites whilst we also advised clients on how to buy production services smarter and then helped them choose technology and run it. People said you couldn’t do all that together, but we never saw why not. We thought that consulting with clients to understand their needs then going on to deliver against them just made sense… question, review, design, build, run.

NF> Technology changed the way people got things done and we were at the cutting edge of that. We started the business in a recession and so we had to be lean, fast and never invest in ‘old’ technology. We went tapeless at a time when others were still buying expensive decks and we pushed ourselves to offer a better, more cost effective solutions. That resonated well for some (others hated it) and from the moment we hired our CTO Wade Ridgway, we have become more and more refined and skilled in creating content and pushing it around the world without playing by the standard rules technology-wise. 

WHAT’S BEEN THE GROWTH STRATEGY?

LH> Hire people who are smarter than we are and encourage them to challenge us (and each other) every day.  That has led to us always improving and creating diversity in our offer, for example the amazing job Nicola Martin has done in launching our production company, Stripey Horse which produces short and long form content and our FD, Sarah Rose who has introduced all manner of reporting and analytics solutions that are blowing client’s socks off. It’s always about our people and our hiring standards are very high which means we have to look far and wide (80% of our people are not British) and beyond the advertising & production industry.

NF> Luke’s right – it’s always been about the challenge – to create better, faster, smarter more resonant content for clients (without ignoring cost) and to treat every localised master as the most important piece of communication we have ever worked on. I hate that localisation is excluded from most agency’s thinking until after the master is created. As a production company, post-house and a localisation company we know with good planning you can make it work so much better if you plan right.

NIC, YOU ARE NOW BASED MOSTLY IN SA – WHY THERE?

NF> Yes it’s been great to expand and ultimately have the chance to move to my home country after 16 years in the UK. Cape Town is such a great city, with so much to offer our international clients in production and through our post / CGI unit… and of course the exchange rate! That was more of a CEO thing to say wasn’t it.

LH> You’re learning mate!