20 years in, the business nobody believed in is still very much open for business
In 2026, Johanna McDowell founded the Independent Agency Search & Selection Company. At that time, pitch consulting was a foreign concept in this country. Agencies were sceptical, and marketers had never heard of such a service. Twenty years later, IAS is marking a milestone that speaks for itself.
In 2006 Johanna McDowell founded the Independent Agency Search & Selection Company. This year the company celebrates 20 years (Image supplied)
To mark the anniversary, IAS will host a celebratory event in June 2026, featuring the results of a white paper examining how South African marketers are balancing brand building and performance marketing — a timely conversation for an industry in flux.
The business was born from McDowell's experience working with the Advertising Agency Register (AAR) in London in the 1980s — a pioneering UK outfit that brought rigour and transparency to the agency selection process.
Years later, when the moment came to start her own venture, she approached the AAR, trained in their methodologies and built something the local industry didn't yet know it needed.
Both the agency and marketer side
"Having worked on both the agency and marketer side, I’d seen the process from every angle.
“The idea of bringing this kind of structured, impartial process to South Africa never really left me," says McDowell.
"The early resistance was real, but so was the gap in the market. Two decades on, I'm proud of what we've built: a business grounded in trust, transparency and genuine industry knowledge."
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Marketing fluency
What sets IAS apart is the marketing fluency it brings to a process that procurement departments — however well-intentioned — often can't replicate.
Its evaluation system is built around the brief, with defined criteria, rigorous scoring and verbatim post-pitch feedback to every agency involved.
For agencies, that means genuine insight rather than silence. For marketers, it means confidentiality, precision and a clearer path to the right partner.
Creating alignment
"Over 20 years in the industry, I've seen how quickly an agency search can become complex and emotionally charged," says Nikki Munsie, business director at IAS.
"Our role is to bring clarity and discipline to that process — creating alignment between strategy, people and ultimately the work. That's where the real value sits, and it's what we've been delivering for two decades."
Masterclass programme
Pitch management was only the beginning.
IAS’s masterclass programme — another concept adopted from the AAR and shaped into something distinctly local — now runs 14 to 15 sessions annually, drawing up to 130 attendees from across Africa through hybrid formats.
Topics range from practical upskilling to industry insights, often informed by McDowell’s regular participation in global AdForum summits.