by Herman Manson (@marklives) Can an ad agency really inspire a nation? The answer, surely, would be no? That was proved wrong by two creative directors dancing to Michael Jackson’s Black or White on the stage of Design Indaba 2015.
Pepe Marais and Xolisa Dyeshana, chief creative officer and executive creative director, respectively, of advertising agency Joe Public, were making a point about how purpose drives change in ‘black and white’ (and how the death of spirit of the Mandela era is greatly exaggerated, after all) .
Marais and business partner Gareth Leck conceptualised their agency 16 years ago on a couch which still takes pride of place in Marais’ office. It’s a business made up of people and their stories, as Dyeshana puts it, and what inspiring stories they tell.
Having sold the business and see it lose its way, the duo bought back the agency in 2009, and set upon a path of rediscovering a purpose for their agency and careers. Finding meaning in the advertising biz seems like a steep challenge but, for Marais and Leck, it would centre on growth.
Not the self-serving kind but the selfless kind where growth serves the business and its people, clients and, says Marais, the country.
Joe Public has built a reputation for its emotive work for brands such as Tracker, Nike and, more recently, Dial Direct. In the process, its agency has achieved incredible client and revenue growth, and created work that has shifted the purpose of the organisations they work with.
For Tracker, it became less about retrieving stolen vehicles and more about serving those often caught up in the trauma of a highjacking. Sales doubled over the course of four years and in the process the agency created an ad that remains powerfully effective years after it was made.
In a country that fought for its freedom, citizens had become prisoners as crime was keeping them off the streets. The campaign aimed to take back the streets on Human Rights Day, signing up 10 000 runners to reclaim the streets of Johannesburg at night, along with some 350 000 spectators.
They believe we, as a nation, can apply the concept of growth — the selfless kind, again — to our dysfunctional education system and so inspire and grow the country. According to Marais, of the 27 000 schools in the country, 22 000 are dysfunctional. He and Dyeshana believes that, by improving education, the outlook for the country and its citizens automatically improve.
They have identified that English is taught only as a second language at 80% of SA’s schools, while math and science are both taught only in English — as a key problem that pupils face. Their One School at a Time Project English campaign sets out to raise money for English language tuition. The results have been impressive and dramatic, and used one average Grade 8 learner, named Lesego, to read a passage on radio station SAfm, every day for a week. The spot tracked her progress over five days with extra English tuition.
It’s affirmative messaging speaks of hope, not failure, and it was wonderfully appropriate for the two creative, one black, one white, to dance together onto a stage, reminding South Africans that we are in this together.
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