Zayd Abrahams, chief marketing and strategy officer, Tiger Brands

We caught up with some of the speakers, including Zayd Abrahams, chief marketing and strategy officer, Tiger Brands, who was part of a panel of experts who discussed the relationship between clients and agencies in this changing environment.

"There is a heightened need for collaboration on how we as agencies and brand owners look at joint custodianship of brands and consumers needs, and the insights around that, and how we need to collaborate to solve business problems and unlock business opportunities,” says Abrahams.

But this should not only be when the brief arrives but throughout the process. He explains how at Tiger Brands, two of its biggest brands, Albany and Koo’s briefing processes have the brand teams and agencies sitting in. “We also took the agency members on delivery trucks for Albany so they could get fully immersed into the route to market,” he adds.

Brands and agencies need to move beyond the brief, and back to the type of intimacy that used to exist. “While we need the contract processes, we really need to get back the feel, the 'gees' for the agency dynamics. This is critical in how we collaborate but more importantly how we procreate solutions,” he says.