Diversity isn't a primary colour

A conversation with an industry colleague earlier in the month had me thinking about how we go about building and developing creative teams that can activate and captivate the mind of the consumer and audience, and in doing so, amplify the message of our clients and their brands. Activate, Captivate and Amplify are powerful expressions of what MediaHeads 360 strives to do when approaching any brief or client need. Our mantra could however easily become media jargon, words that sounds good but mean nothing.

So how do we go about making sure we are the juggernauts and not the jargon?

I firmly believe it is in the exceptional team that we have sculpted as a specialist agency. Over time we've had the privilege of working with creatives, implementors and campaign specialists who have all contributed to the ongoing culture that lives in the daily activities at MediaHeads 360. It's in the process of personal growth and the development of people, in both coming and going, that we've built a diverse team of solution driven creatives.

It's about perspective

Creative teams need to represent the expressions of our communities and consumers. A team that is built with individuals who are moulded and influenced through different life experiences, family structures, educational journeys, work history, cultural roots, economic considerations, language ability and life goals, is powerful. The diversity of the team does however not lie with the company and in a mission statement, it lives in the uniqueness of the team. Mavhuthu Dzege, MediaHeads 360 creative says it is his background and where he comes from, as well as his ability to relate to different things through his current hobbies, activities and friends that add to his creative confidence. Sibongile Tembe, a production intern at MediaHeads 360 says her influence is guided through visualising sound and hearing different layers, colours, and emotion, it's like being in the middle of a colour run telling a story with audio. As the general manager at MediaHeads 360, Kantha Govender, agrees that culture, background, and perspective shape the diverse approach that MediaHeads can offer clients.

Creative input

Nadia Levinson is another MediaHeads 360 creative. Levinson is wired vastly differently to Dzege but is equally passionate about creative influence. Levinson says that it is through a process of engagement that the team build and develop creative approaches and insight for clients, but also a mutual respect. Her creative inspiration is fueled by a love for research and discovering great ideas online as well being a keen follower of pop culture and media trends. Dzege finds his inspiration in everyday life and the comedic events that play out around him. His most recent experience of travelling in a taxi where the driver was short of R1 and promptly took everyone back to the rank is vastly different to Govender who drives a safe reliable family sedan. Together, they are three voices with a common goal, the best creative solution for our clients with the most effective impact.

Being interesting and interested

Govender loves the storytelling ability at MediaHeads 360. She says that everyone is passionate about producing good content that tells an engaging story. From our ability to create and conceptualise radio dramas to integrating content into television series, MediaHeads 360 thrives because our team is interesting and interested. If you want to create solutions, consider innovation and be creative, you need to be interested in the world around you. From knowing where you come from, what makes you tick and why the sky is blue, diverse teams are a juxtaposition of individual thoughts and ideas. Diverse teams clash, they don't fight. Diverse teams listen to each other and extract value from collaboration. Diverse teams are fierce in understanding the challenge and united in solutions. Diverse teams tell great stories.

The creative economy

As we invest into the creative economy, diversity is a currency that creates exponential value. With experience in print and digital, Govender has seen campaigns built on unilateral thinking flop because of the one-sided thought process. Levinson agrees that diversity is a differentiator in the creative palette, it's not always about the primary colour but the hues in between where the art lies. Tembe believes we need to merge more creative elements together and fuse diverse ideas to make new pictures for our audiences. She grew up listening to youth radio and was drawn by the raw ability of the presenter to take her on an audio journey.

In understanding the need for creative diversity, Dzege says the issues we often come across as creatives is a lack of understanding from clients who are stuck on wanting to speak to a target market without knowing the context of the audience. We need to respect our audiences and understand the sensitivities of communities and cultural groups. He adds that as a team we live, speak, and thrive in different places and this makes our colour palette far more versatile and our images more vivid and memorable.

Responsibility

Dzege believes that our ability to communicate with people through the power of our platforms comes with a certain responsibility. As shapeshifters and influencers of stories and narratives, we do have the responsibility to ensure there is diverse thinking. Levinson agrees that it is the way in which each person approaches the process that we develop collective thinking and collective responsibility. Tembe loves that diversity creates options, options create answers.

MediaHeads360's diversity lies in the team of people who are our colour palette, canvasses, and brushes. We are all passionate about solving problems for clients, we just see, think, react, and action things differently. As a team, we relish our collective diversity that empowers solutions for clients, and we look forward to bringing a creative brush stroke of diverse genius to your next campaign.