#BehindtheSelfie with... Jaco Lintvelt

Lintvelt, practising that work-life balance on vacation in Greece.

1. Where do you live, work and play?

I have been living in Cape Town since I moved here to study at the AAA School of Advertising back in 2008 and have not looked back since. Our offices are in Woodstock and Hyde Park, where I spend a great deal of time. It is no secret that I love Cape Town, but due to work, Johannesburg is now also becoming a second home and growing on me.

2. What’s your claim to fame?

It’s got nothing to do with fame, but I am very proud about launching Amnet, the specialists in programmatic buying and the planning, analysis and activation of audience data, in South Africa in 2015. I’ve been very fortunate to work alongside very talented people in SA and across the globe in the process.

3. Describe your career so far.

My career started the day I did an internship at @Neo@Ogilvy Cape Town 2009 and realised that I wanted to be in a media agency (thanks Brad!)

This is where I was first exposed to digital display media and since then I have seen a media revolution happen, which has turned the agency world on its head due to the introduction of ad and martech.

I have experience on both the publisher side at Memeburn and DQ&A, now Incubeta, as well as the agency side through DQ&A Trading Desk, Amnet and iProspect, and it feels that the industry is now about to change again, with the introduction of people-based marketing.

Jaco Lintvelt to take the reins at iProspect South Africa

Dentsu  23 May 2017

I am super excited about the future as I am all in for ad technology, if it can add value to client's campaigns, reduce wastage and increase results.

4. Tell us a few of your favourite things.

A glass of wine with my wife. A few beers with my brother, closest friends and family. Traveling and walking around in a city that I’ve not been before. Phoning my mother after a tough day. The West Coast and the good times with family that goes with it.

5. What do you love about your industry?

Everything! No seriously, the opportunity to influence outcomes and the fact that, with technology playing a bigger role, we can continuously collaborate with partners, colleagues and clients to improve the value we ultimately deliver to our clients from their marketing and media investment.

6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

Meetings from 8:30am to 5pm, emails from 5pm to 7pm, gym if there’s time, and I’m getting back into running again.

7. What are the tools of your trade?

• Personal: Tim Ferris podcasts, Evernote. LinkedIn, Headspace, Apple Music.
  

Professional: I like being technology agnostic.

8. Who is getting it right in your industry?

I admire companies that can make data-informed decisions to improve and personalise consumer experiences, whether that is a purchase journey or post-sale service etc. In my opinion it must be directly linked to a company's bottom line and positive brand association.

9. List a few pain points the industry can improve on.

Marketing, media and business education. Transformation compared to other industries is also happening too slowly and there are still massive gender equality issues.

We are in a very fortunate position, being able to tap into incredible global case studies on our intranet system Neon, which offers a variety of the best work throughout the network. The industry as a whole lacks sharing of their best work and this is the only way that we will be able to improve and continue to innovate in order to push boundaries. The sharing of our case studies and our internal training courses; media 101 and Route 500 which develops our next generation of leaders all aid us in upskilling and educating staff. These types of steps all assist us in educating staff and driving transformation, and is definitely something I would like to see across the industry.

10. What are you working on right now?

At the moment, my focus is making iProspect South Africa the best performance agency in SA. I believe this is all about getting the mix between people, technology, data and creative right.

My time is spent getting the correct mixture between technology, data, creativity and having the correct people in my organisation to deliver value to clients that give them clear business value.

By combining these in the correct manner, I’m confident that there is a massive opportunity for all advertisers to be more sophisticated and smarter with every cent they invest. Whether you’re marketing to a completely new consumer base or marketing to an existing consumer base, with the right people, technology, audience data sets and creative, it can be done in a more effective way.

11. Tell us some of the buzzwords floating around in your industry at the moment, and some of the catchphrases you utter yourself.

Click here for a few buzzwords from the agency world that can have a massive impact on the media industry:

Me, personally:

• “Losers have goals. Winners have systems.”
• ”It’s a matter of input vs output”

My favourite quote at the moment summarises this very well:

If [more] information was the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs…