Matanga Experience 2025 · First edition
Crossed Destinies
Villa Matanga
An agency and its clients share more than a contract: they grow together, or they wear each other out. On 4 April 2025, we put that idea on the table, in front of the people it concerns.
The film
The evening, in a minute forty
The theme
What if happiness between an agency and its clients were built by both?
In our trade, we talk about briefs, deadlines and results. Almost never about what makes a partnership last. For its first edition, Matanga Experience made that its subject.
The arrival
The evening began before the door.
No badge, no sign-in sheet. A few days earlier, each guest had received a physical invitation carrying their own access. At the entrance, nobody checked in: they stepped into an installation.
- 01The invitation, delivered at home
- 02The card, scanned at the door
- 03The tunnel, sound and light
The keynote
Opening with happiness, not a growth curve.
Nelson Metougue, Managing Director of Matanga, spoke without charts or trophies. His starting point: André Comte-Sponville, and his reading of desire as what drives everything we do.
Plato
Desire as lack
Wanting what we don’t have yet. The client who expects results, fresh ideas, performance.
Spinoza
Desire as power
Wanting to unfold what we carry. The agency that wants to create, to leave a mark, to prove its worth.
As long as these two desires ignore each other, both sides leave the table frustrated.
Both sides of the table
Saying what each side expects. Then what the other never dares to ask.
The keynote first spoke for the brands. Then it turned the question around, in front of a room of CEOs and marketing directors. That second part is what silenced the room.
What brands expect
- 01Results, without frictionVisible, measurable, delivered on time.
- 02Business thinkingUnderstanding the market, the competition, the sales, not just creating.
- 03A candid partnerSomeone who listens, and dares to disagree without arrogance.
- 04An agency that movesThat learns, renews itself, and helps see what’s coming.
What agencies never dare to ask
- 01ClarityA sharp brief, honest feedback, decisions that stick.
- 02TimeQuality needs room to breathe. Trust gives it.
- 03RespectRecognised expertise, understood constraints, commitments kept.
- 04Room to dreamGreat campaigns start the day a client says: “Go ahead, surprise me.”
The conclusion
Happiness, as a way of working.
- 1
Align
From the brief: shared goals, in black and white.
- 2
Last
Grow the relationship until the agency becomes part of the marketing team.
- 3
Share
Celebrate wins, learn from failures, stand together when it’s hard.
“A good relationship isn’t one where everything is perfect, but one where each side makes the effort to understand the other.”
The brands
A brand isn’t presented. It’s lived.
The second half of the evening belonged to them. For Panzani, a Michelin-starred chef ran a live cooking counter in the heart of the Villa: the smell, the gesture, the taste. Further on, a shipping container opened onto a port, a pirogue rested on the sand, a life-size cow waited for the guests. Every brand had its own setting.
- Port Autonome de Kribi
- TRADEX
- SOFAVIN
- DANONE
- FrieslandCampina
- Groupe CADYST
- PANZANI
Derick Tchaou then walked through the year’s campaigns, and two personal favourites:
The canvases
One canvas per brand.
Unveiled during the evening, here they are in motion.
Then the night
Dinner, champagne, and everything said afterwards.
Dinner, the Pierre Grandet champagne presentation, then the DJ. The evening ended the way we meant it to: standing, glass in hand, among people who had never spoken before. Several of our projects that year were born there.
Photos: Martinien Bekile
Thank you.
- To our clients, for letting their brand step off the screen.
- To our partners and the institutions that support us.
- To those who came without knowing us, and left knowing us.
- To the Matanga teams, who designed, produced and ran it all, from the first idea to the last glass.
What’s next
From one edition to the next, a single promise: never the same evening twice.
See the 2026 edition