Enter SBAM, the new creative agency born from the fusion of JAKALA and a team of seasoned professionals in the creative world. This new venture embraces Radical Simplicity as its guiding philosophy, seeing simplicity as the ultimate form of communication. Setting it apart in the market is its ability to seamlessly blend creative talent with the opportunities offered by AI & Data transformation, with JAKALA playing a pivotal role on a global scale.
With over 25 active clients - including Virgin Fibra and Cellini Caffè - and a team of 50 creative professionals specializing in branding, campaigns, social media, influencer marketing, and branded entertainment, SBAM emerges within the Digital & Media business line of JAKALA. It's the culmination of months of internal work to build a robust, agile, and ambitious structure that brings together existing professionals alongside new recruits, all part of an ongoing recruitment campaign set to continue in the coming months.
At the helm of SBAM as CEO is Stefano Pagani, previously a co-founder of The Big Now, an independent agency later integrated into the Dentsu world. Here, Pagani first served as CEO of The Story Lab and later as Senior Vice President and member of the executive board of Dentsu Creative. Alongside him in SBAM is a board composed of Samanta Giuliani, Managing Partner & Chief Strategy Officer, Jenny Nieri, Managing Partner & Chief Business Officer, and Luca Grelli, a creative with extensive international experience, as Chief Creative Officer.
As Stefano Pagani explains:
Creating an agency from scratch is a rare opportunity and represents a significant guarantee of excellence for a client. SBAM starts big, but without the overhead: all the attention has been focused on identifying a clear agency DNA that meets the current needs of companies. That is, fewer complications and more willingness to build mutual value by breaking down the walls between agency and company. With this new challenge, we want to demonstrate that it's possible to create an agile, fresh, brilliant creative agency that also aims for significant volumes, structured clients, and ambitious challenges. JAKALA is the best possible partner to realize this type of project: although the company now has revenues of 520 million euros and over 3,000 employees, the governance and culture remain entrepreneurial, granting long-term vision, speed of action, and great affinity with my way of being and thinking
SBAM'S PHILOSOPHY: RADICAL SIMPLICITY
At the core of SBAM lies Radical Simplicity. Simplicity that is never trivialization, but the highest form of creativity. It's about listening to audiences, cultural shifts, channel languages, and real-world culture, ensuring that creativity remains relevant and impactful in a cluttered landscape. Within SBAM, the ability to blend creative talent with data transformation and AI components is crucial, leveraging JAKALA's expertise to deliver innovative solutions globally.
Samanta Giuliani emphasizes:
In an era dominated by Artificial Intelligence and data-driven processes, the role and structure of creative agencies face increasing pressure. Amidst countless technological solutions, the true role of a creative agency becomes clear: it's about asking the right questions and employing professionals who can navigate this landscape effectively. Artificial Intelligence and data are not adversaries but valuable tools that enhance delivery precision, allowing agencies like SBAM to focus on their true strengths: lateral thinking, human insights, and an entrepreneurial spirit
NATIVE LANGUAGE IN CREATIVE BUSINESS
Jenny Nieri adds:
With SBAM's launch, JAKALA extends its expertise to Creative Business, offering clients comprehensive end-to-end consulting services and privileged access to branding and entertainment opportunities. For us, creativity isn't just a department; it's a language, a grammar that shapes our interactions with clients and within our team. It's about fostering collaboration, breaking down barriers, and embracing diverse perspectives to enrich projects
POP CULTURE AT THE CENTER OF CREATIVE THOUGHT
And it's no coincidence that at the heart of Radical Simplicity, there's one last fundamental keyword: culture - in its most pop sense - which plays a crucial role within SBAM.
Our industry is too inward-looking, and this leads to a general flattening of ideas, which distances people from brand communication. The fact that people are willing to pay a premium subscription to avoid being interrupted by ads shows us how urgent it is to refocus the role of creative thinking, often still stuck on TV-centric approaches lazily replicated on social media, or distracted by flashy but futile industry awards. Today more than ever, we must restore creativity to its true meaning of lateral intelligence, its true function as a business problem solver
This is stated by Luca Grelli, a professional with an international creative career that has taken him to Tokyo, New York, and Amsterdam in legendary agencies like W+K with iconic NIKE campaigns.
Barbie teaches: today, restoring creativity to its formidable role as a business accelerator inevitably involves immersing brands in pop culture, thinking in terms of branded entertainment, where brands let themselves be contaminated by every kind of pop language, from cinema to music, to everything that becomes a trend even for just a day
JAKALA ANS SBAM: HUMAN DRIVEN, AI POWERED
Stefano Pedron, Global CEO di JAKALA, concludes:
The background noise caused by the proliferation of technologies and data intelligence is destined to grow exponentially in the coming years. Guiding clients in such a dense constellation of opportunities is, and will be, increasingly challenging. I think integrations is truly the key to winning this challenge: with the foundation of SBAM, JAKALA recognizes creativity as a fundamental ingredient to integrate with its recognized capacity in data and generative AI management. The mix of these components, both implemented at the highest levels, makes our structure truly unique in the market
