Adopting a Sunny futures mindset

Source: © Shao-Chun Wang 123rf

This was what Duncan MacLennan discovered when Covid-19 led him to close his successful business, Andpeople that specialised in youth culture and had numerous global clients, in South Africa. Previously he operated in the agency environment for a decade in the UK working at Havas and the Dentsu Group before setting up shop in this country. He was comfortable in his world.

The closure of his business, however, made him think and led to a shift in his mindset.

“Like so many of us, the unknown made me uncomfortable. But after experiencing Covid-19 and closing our South African agency, I started to think about the future differently,” he says.

Imagination for business

“Imagination is what differentiates us from the world, not only in creativity but also in business. It promotes thinking skills and improves judgement but also makes us more compassionate to each other.

“By exercising our imagination, we can assess the future and create actions to realise or adapt them,” explains MacLennan.

This is what Sunny Futures & Innovation (Sunny), his new endeavour, speaks to – it is about thinking beyond tomorrow and having more control over the future.

Working mainly with multinational brands and agencies, small businesses and start-ups in the UK, Australia and South Africa over the past year to 18 months, through Sunny, he provides frameworks that allow these businesses to see where they are and what their future could look like as well as be able to innovate.

His small business venture programme was born from the need for SME to have access to strategic consultants but often they can’t afford them. "I work together with small businesses with high growth potential to offer them this service, but also to invest tangibly in them to accelerate their growth," he adds.

“This has meant moving away from the hour-based billing model to a value proposition that works for the clients and myself. It has led to moving away from being campaign driven to a product driven,” he says.

Creating more value for consumers

While to date he has worked with agencies in the UK and Australia, locally he is starting to open discussions with the larger agencies.

He would like to engage with like-minded agencies with an appetite to help the influential brands and businesses they work with to create more value than they extract by utilising foresight driven futures and strategic thinking.

“Brands of the future will need to create more value for consumers than they extract, and agencies are the ones that can drive this by developing systems and strategies to service this need,” he says

Spreading the sunshine

Duncan MacLennan founder of Sunny Futures & Innovation

He also wants to challenge the idea of time-based billing next year in a provocative way, and while he does not have any expectations of success; he says he is doing it to get people to think differently and to think smart about the future.

“I am working to spread my attitude, to think more long term and take ownership of the future… but also to have fun. That is the value that I can capture and create... and spread a bit of sunshine at the same time,” he adds.