Making sense of the MadWorld of advertising

You may have heard of Adelaide Potgieter, even if the name doesn't ring a bell the first time you see it - she's a former Miss SA semi-finalist, and certainly has the brains to balance out her beauty as the woman who famously won the Shoprite Checkers account by 'thinking out the box' - literally, as she sent CEO Whitey Basson the arm and a leg of a mannequin in a beautifully wrapped box, with a letter stating "Dear Mr Basson, I would give an arm and a leg for a moment of your time". His response was a similar package with a note stating: "Thank you for the arm and the leg, but you have forgotten the most important part of the body; the heart!" On being told the pitch was out to tender, following yet another creative desk delivery of a body-painted woman in a coffin, the pitch continued with a branded bus and toyi-toying with placards in the Shoprite car park - this passion eventually led to their first brief for the group.

Adelaide Potgieter

It's quite the coup - little wonder then that Potgieter says: "It remains for me an unforgettable story of hope, belief and magic of the human spirit. I still run my business the same way, always looking for those special people like Whitey Basson, who will see me, see my MadWorld, and believe in what we live for, and what we can create for them."

Here, she tells us more about how the agency came about, its daily processes and vision of becoming a fast-paced, eccentric, cutting-edge creative creator brand...

1. When and how did MadWorld and Mad Advertising get started?

Potgieter: 1998 was a decisive year in my life. I realised that working for corporate companies and doing corporate work just wasn't my vocation. I was creative. I wanted to do Mad things. I had an incredible hunger to start something. Something I believed in. Something I was passionate about. So I risked everything, started with nothing, and so began the journey of MadWorld.

2. Talk us through the evolution of the agency name.

Potgieter: It started as Mad.Dot.Ad - 'Mad' because I wanted to break conventions; Dot for the internet boom; and Ad for Advertising. Things evolved, we diversified and with that came new fresh brand names. Being unconventional was our vision so we used "Mad" as the prefix in all our company names, hence Mad Advertising, Mad Online, Mad Studios, Mad Events, and so on. In 2010 we created MadWorld as an umbrella brand to unify our varied companies.

3. How do you incorporate a creative communications agency, recording studio, chat room, set-construction, restaurants, and property development all in one?

Potgieter: We love work. We love creating and being creative. Most forms of advertising are multi-faceted, and we have always enjoyed all the divergent facets. More importantly, we have believed that we could bring our MadWorld approach and insights to these areas of business. All industries require creative expression and fresh ideas, whether you're building something, serving something or producing something.

4. Let's simplify: What's the basic work flow or creative process in the agency?

Potgieter: Our agency follows a pretty conventional approach to process, but the difference we try to create is in what I call an idiosyncratic convention - a Mad convention, if you will - which asks to first look at something in a tried and tested conventional way, and then to completely discard that and look for the link, the missing key, and the hook. The ethos I have encouraged is based on key Mad steps: questioning (everything from looking at what is asked to what is needed), understanding (knowing it as it is, and as if it wasn't), contextualising (from where it comes, to who it must go, what surrounds it, and why is it needed), white-papering (thinking anew, no ink, just a clean white page), light-bulb moment (thinking, dreaming, working until you get that breakthrough), storytelling (making it sink in, making people imagine and visualise), and the big sell (fighting for the idea with passion and making people believe).

5. Explain the Mad World strategy.

Potgieter: We have a vision at MadWorld, a vision to be a fast-paced, eccentric, cutting-edge creative 'creator brand'. To live our lives sharing the mission of creating, building, developing and thinking out 'great things'. MadWorld is thus not so much a thing as it is a mind-set, a purpose. But where do we place this purpose? Well, opportunities come fast and unexpectedly and having too rigid a strategy can limit the ability to adapt and respond. We remain as flexible as possible. Our strategy is to always be ready, always watching, looking for where we can make an impact in shaping our lives, our surroundings, our communities, our world!

6. What makes you stand out from the rest?

Potgieter: Personally, I believe in being 100% authentic. Just me. Just Adelaide. That includes the whole of me, take it or leave it. From a business perspective, exactly the same on a brand spirit level, we are MadWorld. We think, create, inspire, and invest our whole selves as a collective in living the MadWorld vision of making everything we do 'great', to make every moment 'madly amazing' and to do that every second of every day 'right here, right now'.

7. Moving on to your team, what are the exciting new developments in the team that have enhanced your overall skillset?

Potgieter: We are really excited about new experiential and event opportunities lying ahead, and the formation of our Digital division has been very exciting, adding a fresh offering to our agency. We are brewing up a digital solution that we believe could very well be a future road-shaper for our agency and Group. We've also never really been part of the standard industry pitch procurement process, something we have finally changed. This is exciting and we have put a renewed focus on growing new accounts, which we believe will be fruitful.

8. Sticking to new accounts, tell us about your impact on the ad industry of late.

Potgieter: I rebelled against what seemed like an obsession in the industry with awards and made it a founding principle that we don't work for awards, we work for rewards. I want us to be known as an all-or-nothing agency that puts itself on the line through how we work, think, believe and love what we do. That being said, I am for rewarding agencies who achieve results for brands when consumers take note, appreciate and relate to what they do. We've picked up two consecutive Tempo awards, the most recent just now in June 2015, for our production of Die Nataniël Tafel on kykNet. But as wonderful it is to have the trophies on display in our offices, knowing that we created something that added value to people's lives, something they've responded to and appreciate... is greater still.

9. What's next for your agency?

Potgieter: I would love to work with a brand which is being led by an enigmatic female leader, so I'm going after that. I would also like to see us working more and more on major CSI campaigns, as these areas really need creative injection, approach, and new and innovative solutions to really affect change. And then to return to a certain extent to our strongest skill, our creativity, and offer brands our MadWorld of ideas in the form of a creative plug-in agency. Other than that, on a daily basis I strive to be great while always aiming at being even better tomorrow.

10. That's a topic close to my heart: Elaborate on the topic of women in the creative industry.

Potgieter: The world needs women. The very fabric of society needs women. Women are essential if we really want to have a conversation about life, purpose, meaning and how we can live larger-than-life lives. Women are blessed with intuition, insight, vision, passion, love, imagination, creativity, intelligence and a whole body, heart and mind - more of these wonderful individual attributes that make the world a bigger, better and more interesting place to exist in and be part of.

11. Great. Let's end by looking into the crystal ball: What trends do you see as the biggest still to come in the latter-half of 2015?

Potgieter: We are living in interesting and tumultuous times. Great possibilities await. As a nation - and as a world - we need to be tuned in to this. Creativity and entrepreneurial innovation must take centre-stage and stand to support humanity facing issues of poverty and unemployment, education, basic amenities, healthcare and hunger. I don't care much for the trend of what's the new 'it', I'm concerned with how we can creatively capture said trends to get involved, make change and do good in a bid to just live better.