My 30th anniversary wish for the ad industry

Junior AE takes on SARS

I thoroughly enjoyed my first day as a junior AE working on...wait for it...SARS, which 30 years ago stood for the South African Railway Services. TV was like a new toy and making railway ads was exciting.

I worked on SARS for several years before the account later became SATS and was given to another agency. My client meetings with Nic and Charl were held in Afrikaans and I had to write all my contact reports in Afrikaans. (Sometimes with the help of our Afrikaans copy department!)

My other account was The Perm Building Society. Those were the days when many people in the townships held savings accounts in building societies, not the banks. The Perm, as it was later branded, was a leading financial institution in these areas, second only to stokvels.

Rebranding and going global

On the subject of name changes, Van Zijl and Schultze moved out of downtown Jozi into Sandton and the name changed to VZ Ogilvy & Mather - now formally part of the Ogilvy group with 140 offices worldwide. We even changed our corporate colours from olive green to bright pillar-box red.

Our offices displayed the new found global status for our clients by rolling out the red carpet - winding literally right through the entire agency building. My office had the most awesome views of the northern suburbs, shared with our neighbours and rivals Grey Advertising, plus the infamous Sandton Sun Hotel.

By 1984 I had been promoted to account manager, looking after a mix of accounts such as Nestle, PG Glass, Avis and still The Perm, naturally. My new salary was a whopping R2000 a month. My account director was Clive Simpkins - South Africa's leading speech and self-image guru. I owe a lot to Clive for making life in an agency the productive learning experience that it was. Clive taught me the art of presentation and how to wow my clients.

Volkswagen, Audi go their seperate ways

It was put to good effect in 1987 when I was transferred to Cape Town as newly appointed account director on Volkswagen and Audi. In those days Audis were still sold off the same dealership floor as Volkswagens. Hell, I can still remember working on the strategic brand separation document and the presentation to VW's management. Audi recently celebrated it's centenary birthday and look where the brand is today. Viva la Vorsprung Durch Technik!

Now, nearly three decades later as a training consultant, I do very little in the way of presentations. But I do my best to call on forgotten peoples' skills in the training class on the odd occasion that I make a public appearance.

Looking back, I acknowledge that life in advertising was good to me. I learnt a lot about business, about brands, about people and about myself. I never stopped learning. Which brings me to the point of this little trip down memory lane.

Young guns slandering the ad industry

I still read the press marketing and advertising pages with some regularity. It saddens my heart to see how the new young guns in the business slander their industry. Both black and white: The industry is too white! Or the industry is better off without BEE! Or they only claim black ownership. Or there are no growth opportunities for the previously disadvantaged. Or the strategic creative is left to the pale faces!

In the apt words of my creative mentor, Brian Searle-Tripp, "rubbish!"

Work hard and build your own knowledge bank. And if you don't have a passion for advertising, do yourself and your agency colleagues a favour and get the hell out of the industry.

David Ogilvy advised it, and now so do I. Let's hope and pray that 2011 sees a change in our ad industry peoples' attitudes.

That is my 30th anniversary wish.