Johnston recently left the IMC after seven years spent establishing Brand South Africa both domestically and in key markets overseas. Chauke's track record is in the development of communication strategy, and his career has encompassed some of SA's top blue chip companies, giving him experience in various sectors of business.
Comments Johnston, “Martin and I have both sat on both sides of the fence, and we can see the issues that arise on the client side, and on the agency side.”
She says that Marketers-at-Large aims to fill in the gaps and facilitate better working relationships with clients, removing some of the frustrations, saving time, money and elevating the creative work. The company intends to be the bridge between client, and advertising and communications agencies, making the client-approval process easier, and the agency process more productive and profitable.
“Today, everyone is trying to conserve budgets, make the advertising rand work more efficiently. However, all sorts of things arise that conspire against this efficiency. Many clients write briefs that haven't truly thought through the end objectives. There is, on both sides, often not sufficient attention paid to defining and agreeing the communication strategy,” asserts Johnston.
“The nett result of this combination of inadequate briefs and undefined strategy then wastes a great deal of all role-player's time whilst un-strategic campaigns are developed. Client becomes frustrated, Agency wastes precious time and human resources. Then, the final problem is that many clients are unsure if the work presented to them is actually good, on strategy, on brand and worth approving.”
For more information, go to www.marketer-at-large.co.za.
