Industry maverick to talk honesty at Nedbank IMC 2021

Sylvester Chauke

Sylvester is of the opinion that: “In the boardrooms, we are being politically correct in many ways and as a result, there is not enough honesty coming from agencies to clients.”

His thoughts echo much industry sentiment. In a recent survey, UK based marketing platform, Creativebrief, stated that there is a real fear amongst agencies of long-term client relationships being at risk of ‘extinction’. Creativebrief canvassed 50 brand Chief Marketing Officers and 50 agency Chief Executive Officers. The results indicate that agencies and brands are not on the same page when it comes to the future health of relationships. 65% of agency CEOs said they feared such relationships were under threat compared with 38% of CMOs.

In the survey, both agencies and brands agreed that "trust", "openness", "transparency" and "shared goals" scored highly as important conditions that lead to thriving brand/agency partnerships. However, agency bosses feel they are getting the "raw end of the deal" when it comes to client/agency relationships.

But how do we get back to basics? As one of the marketing superstars at Marketing.The Movie, Sylvester addresses this topic in his presentation: “Have honesty and basics in brand building Gone with the Wind?” Sylvester believes that the industry focuses too much on the contractual agreements when in fact, “not enough honesty is based on trying to do really impactful work”. He was recently in the news for being the first 100% black owned agency to win the Prism Award for Best Large PR Consultancy in 2021.

Having set the benchmark for virtual conferences in 2020, the Nedbank IMC has become Africa’s foremost marketing conference. This year’s event includes a line-up of 18 local and international marketing stars. Other global keynotes include Instagram Product Marketing Manager, Jon Youshaei, US CMO for Anheuser-Busch, Marcel Marcondes, FCB Global CCO and top African influencer Terryanne Chebet.

To find out more, and for ticket bookings, visit https://imcconference.com/

Tickets priced at R 1,999.00 (excl. VAT)

A 50% discount with tickets priced at R999.00 (excl. VAT) is available to registered marketing or business students. Email moc.ecnerefnoccmi@ofni.