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Chicken Licken bravely debones a rare phobia with their latest campaign
Joe Public 2 days








1. Where do you live, work and play?
Pike: Jozi.
Pike: I've developed ways of thinking about marketing communications strategy (advertising/PR) in the new technology-enabled and highly connected world. I apply them and execute campaigns in politics, as I've been fortunate enough to advise political campaigns right into Africa, as well as in social change campaigns and in brand marketing. I'm also a professional speaker and I talk about the future of business, focusing on advertising and PR.
Pike: Believe it or not, I started off my working life as a farmer, farming citrus in the Eastern Cape. I then moved into the motor industry in sales and marketing positions, left, joined advertising, went back and then got into the advertising industry again. I worked in Cape Town as strategy and client service director at what I think was then the hottest agency in South Africa.
But I've been on my own for decades, except for a time as head of faculty at the AAA School of Advertising. When I started the digital academy, we were the first ever, anywhere in the world, to be endorsed by Google. There have been lots of innovations in that time, like the time I managed to convince a major retail clothing chain to stock lifestyle clothes, dovetailing into a car launch as part of their normal merchandise, in effect selling our promotional clothing... but I won't bore you with them all.
Pike: I have many. I recently picked up an old passion of mine with horses. I now play polo again after a break of 30 years and am often asked to assist on the racecourse and others with difficult horses. I love photography and fly fishing. My best times though are the times I spend talking to smart people. I used to run a group called IdeaOrgy (where ideas meet and mate). I learn so much from talking to people. I also believe that red wine is a health drink.
Pike: Change. I thrive on change, I love uncertainty and solving big problems. I get bored by the mundane and routine.
Pike: I think the industry is by-and-large selling what the clients want. I know that sounds like good customer service. But, like Steve Jobs felt, it's not the client's job to know what they need, and I think we fall down on that. The industry needs to take the leadership, we are, after all, the sector experts, to guide our clients into what is essentially a new world. Recent research shows that the adoption rates for example of social media by SA corporates is very low. I do a talk about the world changing at midnight, when everyone was asleep to no one noticed. I don't think we do that.
Pike: It doesn't exist, there is no routine. I have three screens running on my desk, streaming information to me all the time. I spend an enormous amount of time being on top of stuff, I'm often travelling especially into Africa, which I love. For the rest, every assignment is a fresh new project and I approach them all from first principles.
Pike: My intellect.
Pike: I suppose it depends on how you define the industry. I've always followed the advice of slicing the industry into thin slices and to be the top of your own thin slice.
Pike: I'm working on a social change project aimed at getting South Africans to believe in ourselves and in our countrymen. I'm also working on an advanced workshop with my colleague from California on social media.
Pike: Buzzwords are lazy. Mostly they are there to hide a lack of understanding and to appear smart. 'Big data' I suppose is one of them, 'influencer marketing' another. I talk a lot about directed activism, but it's not really a buzz word, it's just how I see things.
Pike: My best ideas come to me in no special order and at no special time.
Usually they are sparked by someone saying something, which opens up a new thinking pathway in my head.
So they happen when I am with people.
I find these days that I am at my most relaxed when I'm out riding a young horse just off the racetrack, on my own in the veld.
Pike: Listening.
Pike: Ha ha, would you like an invite to Ello?
Pike: Such a variety of stuff. Many apps that I'm playing with. I'm always looking for new stuff.
Pike: Turn up, be there, learn, have an opinion.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/walterpike
On Twitter: @walterpike
On LinkedIn: za.linkedin.com/in/walterpike/
My website: http://pike.co.za
Click here for Pike's latest article on influencer marketing.
*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.