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Hippie sense makes business sense


Cape Town – “Hippie sense makes business sense,” a top ad agency executive told a gathering of entrepreneurs in Cape Town on Thursday.

Joe Public chief creative director Pepe Marais was speaking at a Nedbank Simply Biz seminar, currently celebrating 10 years of seminars across the country.

His statement was in reference to thinking creatively in all spheres of business to bring about original ideas with a unique focus on the purpose of your mission to humanity.

Marais was speaking to Stafford Masie, CEO and founder of Thumbzup, during a discussion on their stories of overcoming several common challenges that all entrepreneurs faced.

Marais spoke of the challenges that his company experienced, first when it joined a global corporate and then when the advertising agency broke away and went private again.

Marais started Joe Public in 1998 with Gareth Leck, who he connected with after talking about the differences between surfing and paddle skiing. “He told me paddling in the ocean was actually very dangerous and that he once saved a man from downing,” Marais said. “I looked at him with disbelief and said, ‘that was me’.”

That near death experience changed Marais’ outlook on life and was the start of a business partnership that has been like a marriage.

Watch:

Growing pains

In its first year Joe Public won the Financial Mail's Emerging Agency Award and in its second year it was nominated as one of South Africa's most promising companies. By the third year, DraftFCB America was knocking on its doors wanting to buy into the revolutionary take-away advertising concept, which they did.

“Our model was sexy, it was cooking,” he said. “But the corporate partnership meant we were always chasing the bottom line and focussed too much on one client, who made up 50% of our revenue.”

“Money limits your vision,” he said. “International shareholders stifle creativity and freedom. You can only have an authentic vision if you have an authentic purpose.”

“We fought to buy back our company in 2009,” he said. “We lost our main client and had to cut our staff from 65 to 30 overnight.”

“Our turning point as a company was when we realised our purpose, which was to grow clients, grow people and grow this country,” he said.  “We started to sell a humanity pitch, not a product pitch.”

Today, Joe Public has been ranked as the largest independent and fastest-growing South African advertising group and with aims to take the company global. “The difference this time will be that we will own the company and keep our culture in tact.”

An example of the out-of-the-box thinking that Joe Public has can be seen in this advert.

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Education is key

Marais said education was key to improving the world and creating more entrepreneurs, “and not the education in its current form, which was designed to create factory workers”.

“We need a new approach to education that promotes creativity, human awareness and self-esteem,” the former rock band member said.

One School at a Time is a project Marais started to contribute to solving this problem. “I had this insight to create a vision that would change education in South Africa,” he said. “We have partnered with two schools, Forte High School in Soweto and Itirele-Zenzele Comprehensive School in Diepsloot.”

Pass rate at Forte High School:

Growing entrepreneurs

Another side project Marais has embarked on is starting a project to grow entrepreneurs using the model that helped Joe Public find success. “The core idea behind this model is finding your purpose beyond financial gain that an entrepreneur can focus on,” he said. “I believe that if you follow your purpose you will find success.”

Marais has already assisted one entrepreneur to find that purpose, which has helped the company grow.

Watch:

“We need more entrepreneurs in South Africa,” he said. “We have the ability to set an example to the rest of the world. We are the country of Nelson Mandela and the country of the Cradle of Humankind. We can achieve great things.”

Masie, the former GM of Google SA, said every South African should try being an entrepreneur once.

Watch:


* There are two more Simply Biz Seminars in Witbank on September 2 and Sandton on September 5.

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