Marketing and advertising don’t become bland and forgettable because organisations lack smart people, but because bold ideas are often weakened by crowded briefs, too many opinions and systems designed to reward the familiar.
In this episode of The Lead Creative’s Marketers’ Brief series, Refilwe Maluleke, Executive Head of Marketing at Discovery Health, and Bridget Harpur, Head of Marketing at Volkswagen South Africa, explore what happens between the ambition to create remarkable work and the safe advertising that eventually reaches the market. Their conversation reveals a leadership challenge. Great creative work needs expertise, judgement and someone willing to own the final decision.
Watch it here:
Bridget describes advertising as an “absolute sea of sameness”, partly driven by the industry’s algorithmic approach that optimises towards what is already familiar. Digital tools can improve efficiency and help brands sell, but an overreliance on them can produce work that follows established patterns rather than breaking through.
“If you’re constantly leaning on all the digital tools and not enough into your consumer and your intuition and creativity, you’re going to end up with work that’s safe,” she says. “Safe still sometimes sells products. Does it build your brand over time? Probably not.”
Refilwe traces bland advertising back to what happens before an idea is created. Poor briefs, competing internal requests and a failure to trust specialists can leave agencies solving an unclear or overloaded problem. Once the idea enters a long chain of approvals, each stakeholder can remove another part of what made it distinctive.
“Even a beautifully great idea that is just magical, by the time it’s gone through all of the different forums and stakeholders, sometimes it’s lost its magic,” she explains.
The answer is not to disregard evidence or stakeholder expertise. It is to treat their contributions as valuable data points while leaving the marketing leaders closest to the brand accountable for the decision.
Key insights to watch
- Why data reveals what people do, while marketers must still understand why they do it.
- How marketing teams can develop intuition through experience, mistakes and exposure to senior decision-making.
- Why craft can turn a good advertising idea into a great one.
- How awards can build internal confidence in marketing and demonstrate commercial effectiveness.
- Why brands should resist chasing every social media trend or reacting immediately to competitors.
Marketers’ Brief brings together leading marketers to explore the forces changing the industry and the decisions that will shape where brands go next.
This conversation is hosted by Mongezi Mtati of The Lead Creative and Danette Breitenbach, Managing Editor of Bizcommunity, and sponsored by the award-winning digital agency Rogerwilco.
Thanks to our production partners, Soweto Media.
The Lead Creative Podcast is available on:
Or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Follow The Lead Creative on:
Please share, subscribe and send us recommendations of creative industry thought leaders to feature.