[Interview] Pepe Marais, Co-Founder, Joe Public

Joe Public is one of South Africa’s largest, fully independently owned advertising and communications groups that has, over the last 26 years, made a mark in creative excellence while delivering impactful campaigns and brand storytelling that has resonated with diverse audiences.

Pepe Marais, the Co-Founder, spoke to Marketing Report about the agency’s philosophy, the trends shaping the advertising and creative industries and what the future holds.

How would you describe Joe Public’s mission and vision in the current advertising landscape?

Joe Public has a purpose: To serve the growth of our people, our clients and our country through the greatness of creativity. With this clarity in mind, we are focused daily on the measured improvement of our creative product – from our strategic thinking that inspires our ideas through market insight, to the caliber of our creative ideas and execution, all with the intention of resonating with our consumers to a level that they become fans of the brands that we serve.

What do you believe sets Joe Public apart from other agencies?

I would say four things:

Our clarity of purpose.

Our obsession with the greatness of creativity, which is the ‘how’ to our ‘why’ and the only way that we can play a part in the growth of our clients.

Our clarity of vision, which includes growth of people, diversity and inclusion, conscious leadership and a world-class creative product.

Our independence.

You were recently named the agency of the year at the 46th annual Loeries Awards. This is one of the numerous awards you have won across different categories and regions. How do you explain these successes?

I think to be consistently at the top (5 times number 1 and twice number 2 in 7 years) does show that we have a different approach, especially given the caliber of local network agencies like Ogilvy and TBWA, and the strength of the Middle East in terms of creative output. I believe that this consistency is based on clarity of purpose, vision, our culture, and the power of measurement. Most businesses measure only its money. We measure the growth of our people, the growth and improvement of our product, our contribution to the growth of our clients, our finances and our contribution to society. We believe that this balanced approach to growth will create a more sustainable business.

What are the biggest challenges currently facing the advertising industry, and how is Joe Public addressing them?

The biggest challenge that we are facing is our obsession with busy-ness (short-termism through the digital tsunami). Our industry has become obsessed with salesmanship rather than showmanship. Where brand used to make up 30% to 40% of the total media mix, with retail sales making up 60% to 70%, we are seeing brand making up only 5% of what we do. This is leading to a decline in trust that is affecting sales. Orlando Wood has done a deep study on this aspect of our industry, proving that 94% of what we do as an industry is in fact not effective.
We are addressing this issue through consciously focusing on the improvement of our creative output. After all, that is the best way that we can add value to our clients. I am not negating the importance of social and digital, but the over-obsession with what I call disposable advertising, content that takes massive investment yet creates low engagement and lives for no more than 20 seconds, is leaving not just our industry poorer, but are causing brands to lose the trust of consumers.

How has the shift towards digital marketing impacted Joe Public’s strategy and operations?

We are fully integrated, with our campaigns running across all traditional and digital platforms. I am very clear that there is a space for digital within the total mix. However, I am very clear that the mix between shortism and long-term brand has become unbalanced, and this is a daily quest for our agency to overcome.

Tell us about Joe Public’s creative philosophy? How do you ensure that your campaigns resonate with diverse audiences?

Firstly, people are at the heart of our business. In fact, we chose to name our brand Joe Public because we wanted to create advertising for the man and woman on the street. So as a start, it is in our DNA, it is part of our culture. Wanting to do work that is loved by consumers. We use social as a tool to monitor whether people love the work we do for our brands. This for me is one of the most powerful aspects of social – that we can use engagement and likes, rather than impressions and views, to point towards us doing what we do well. How do we do work that resonates with consumers? I would say because of this intent in the type of work that we want to do, we really dig deep to find the right consumer insight and cultural nuances and bake this into our work.

How does Joe Public approach collaboration with clients to ensure their vision aligns with the campaigns being developed?

We have learnt over time that to do the best work, you must have mutual trust and respect. And that takes time. Our best work is mostly done for our clients that have been on a journey with us for a while. But we do also have tools, like our Growth Contract, where we create a shared vision on what we want to achieve creatively, and set our collective KPIs accordingly. We are very systems-orientated as a creative agency. People often question systems, but systems create freedom.

What trends do you foresee shaping the future of advertising in the coming years?

AI is going to become a powerful tool that will help us to take care of the short-term content, opening time to think and focus on what makes a real difference to the growth of brands, which is meaningful, relevant work that is loved by consumers. I am also seeing a return to the power of creativity, but it is going to demand a few lighthouse brands to lead the way. And not just with small-scale self-funded campaigns, but prolific brand campaigns that makes a meaningful difference to the growth of the brands that we serve.

How is Joe Public planning to leverage emerging technologies, such as AI and data analytics, in your strategies?

One day at a time. It is going to be a process. We are creatures of habit, and sometimes it takes a global catastrophe to force us to change. But as always, a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. We are living in an exciting time, and if you have growth mindset, you will embrace everything that is coming our way. But in the end, these are just tools, and the most powerful computer on the planet cannot out-process the creativity that resides at our navels as human beings. I remain firm in my belief that big ideas will always be more powerful than big data. Our ideas are our reason to exist as an industry, and the rest are just tools to help us bring our feelings to life.

What message would you like to convey to Joe Public’s clients, employees and the broader community about the agency’s future?

We are 26 years young. That is the age when most of us just left tertiary education. As a business, we are not even close to what we set out to achieve. We are excited about the future, about playing our part, not only within our country, but beyond our borders, as we believe that our country has a role to play within the broader world. We are humbled by our achievements and remain down to earth. Nothing we have done this far would have been possible without our people, our clients, and all of our production partners.

No matter what, the purpose of purpose is fun. We each have one life, why not make the absolute most of it.

www.joepublic.co.za