“You pray for good weather conditions.” That’s how Charl Bassil, chief brand officer at the BBC, opened his presentation at the Nedbank IMC Conference on 18 September.
Charl Bassil is a big proponent of thinking like a challenger. Source: Nedbank IMC.
It was a farming metaphor passed down to him early in his career: nurture the soil, sow the seeds, and pray for the right conditions. Get it right, and you can feed a community for a year.
For Bassil, that philosophy captures what marketing is really about. Not chasing the next quarter’s numbers or the latest hype cycle, but building with patience, empathy, and purpose. From SAB in South Africa to Absolut Vodka in Sweden, and now the BBC in the UK, Bassil has built his career around long-term brand transformation.
At IMC, he distilled his approach into six provocations for marketers — each shaped by hard-won lessons across continents.
1. Listen with empathy
“Steal with your ears,” Bassil recalled his father saying. Listening, he stressed, is a marketer’s most powerful tool — but not the cold, data-driven kind. It’s listening with empathy, as though hearing a child: to audiences, consumers, colleagues and stakeholders. “In a world of noise, empathy is how we connect.”
2. Be firm on your true north
Brands, like people, need a compass. For the BBC, that “true north” rests on three pillars: pursuing truth without agenda, backing the best homegrown storytelling (“local is lekker, even in the UK,” Bassil joked, referencing the BBC’s made of here campaign), and bringing people together in moments that matter.
3. Adopt a challenger mindset
Bassil has banned the word iconic. “If you presume your legacy will carry you forward, you’re wrong,” he said. Absolut had been in 12 years of decline before its turnaround. The BBC, despite its stature, is under pressure as an institution. The only way forward is to act like a challenger: face reality, know your competitors, use data — but temper it with empathy.
4. Reappraisal, not reinvention
Marketers often fuel their egos by reinventing brands. Bassil cautioned against it. “The job is reappraisal.” Absolut’s bottle remained unchanged for four decades, yet fresh storytelling drove new relevance. Cultural icons like James Bond succeed not by rewriting their story, but by adapting with fresh consistency.
5. Balance legacy with innovation
The BBC has been innovating since the days of George V’s wartime broadcasts. It pioneered streaming with iPlayer before Netflix, but failed to brand it properly. Today, the challenge is to balance that legacy with digital innovation that can compete with Netflix, Spotify and CNN. “Don’t get stuck in the past, but don’t abandon it either,” Bassil warned.
6. Play the long game
Marketing, Bassil reminded delegates, is not for superheroes. It’s for team builders, collaborators and long-term thinkers. Too many businesses are trapped in short-term metrics. “Our job is to look up. To build culture, not just campaigns. To play the long game.”
Brave. Kind. Believe.
Bassil closed with a call to action rooted in African lessons:
Be brave — say what you mean, call out nonsense, and challenge stereotypes.
Be kind — to audiences, colleagues and to yourself. “Kindness will be the ultimate USP in a world of AI.”
Believe — in your own voice, and in marketing’s power to shape culture.
From Klerksdorp to London, Bassil has carried Africa’s “magic” into the global boardroom. And whether he’s leading vodka, broadcasting or brands yet to be imagined, his philosophy is the same: marketing is farming. Sow with empathy, tend with patience, and you might just feed a community for years to come.
Watch more exclusive insights from Bassil here.
