The value of focusing on the opportunities with Jacques Burger.

I must be honest, I invited Jacques Burger to be my first guest on this podcast series, as I needed someone I was comfortable practising with. We’ve known each other since 1998, and our lives have taken very similar trajectories. I was even able to convince him to start M&C Saatchi Abel with me in 2010, and we work together every day to build the agency into one of the best.

Although he was my guinea pig, so to speak, I’ve saved my podcast conversation with Jacques for last. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed talking about moving to Australia and returning to South Africa – something both of us did – seeing Tiffany & Co.’s brand breakdown in action and, of course, AI in the marketing industry.

South Africa is once again at a tipping point, so I wanted to start off by getting the emigration elephant out of the room. How has South Africa changed in the time Jacques had been away? How has his view of South Africa changed in this time, and in the 10+ years that he’s been back?

“I came back to South Africa with the realisation that some of what I thought was wrong about this country and some of what I thought was missing about this country wasn’t actually that bad. I think a lot of things have become a whole lot worse. There's no denying that. That’s scary when you look at it on paper,” Jacques says.

But he has hope. “What still amazes me about South Africa and why I've got hope for South Africa, is the fighting spirit of South Africans. There’s great proof that we've faced many, many challenges before as a country and because of that unique South African spirit and can-do attitude, we've managed to get through. So I have to believe that we can do that again.”

What Jacques didn’t say, is that he likes a crisis. If there’s a fire, he won’t run away; he’ll grab a fire extinguisher and put it out. Instead of going into victim mode, Jacques admits that he is energised by a problem: “If I do something and lean into it, who knows, I might just solve the problem. When you start to orientate like that in life and in work, it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That builds confidence and the fear is replaced with excitement.”

He believes this is true of South Africa too, where people are turning challenges into opportunities. (If you’d like to see living proof of this, listen to my conversations with Songezo Zibi and Mbali Ntuli.)

“Pressure often brings out a force to act, and to change, and to will. It's not pleasant in the moment and it can be very scary, and takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy, but I think if you're able to use that momentum, it creates great opportunity.”

Why brand experience always matters

When we were talking about the impression South Africa makes on paper, Jacques brought up the helpfulness and the kindness of our people and why expats like living here. In advertising, this is called the product or brand experience, which often counts for more than the product itself. He has a wonderful story about going to a Tiffany & Co. store with his daughter that illustrates this beautifully.

The backstory is that his eldest daughter was obsessed with the classic Tiffany & Co. heart necklace. When they were abroad on holiday, Jacques decided to treat her. When they got to the store and saw the price of the gold necklace, they immediately changed their minds and asked for a sterling silver necklace, only to find out that the silver ones were only available online. Immediately, his daughter did not want the necklace anymore.

“What she really wanted was for it to be wrapped in the store and put into a little blue box. She wanted that experience, and she wanted to leave with the bag with the Tiffany & Co. logo on it and, I suppose, take a selfie outside the store. Her sense of that experience was so important. What was wrapped around that product, everything that the brand represents, was something that she wanted.”

In their drive to “premiumise” certain items, Tiffany & Co. had lost sight of what makes them unique. On a whole other level, in a whole other universe, that can be said of AI, too. Jacques and I agree that AI has a place and can take out a lot of the slog. But it uses what’s already out there and follows others’ examples.

As always, Jacques puts it best: AI can only take from what exists. With that, there is a risk that you can end up generating a whole lot of ideas that are all kind of the same and that are all playing into the category. I think we've got to be careful that we don't end up in a world where, because we can generate mediocre thinking very, very quickly, that that becomes acceptable. Because I think that what AI will do is it'll eradicate bad, bad work, bad layouts, bad thinking and bad ideas quite quickly, and it'll generate very average work frighteningly quickly.”

For Jacques and myself, and everyone in the creative industry, that is both a challenge and an opportunity.

As I have continued to say throughout each episode, the podcast has been about hopeful conversations that challenge perspectives, and “hope” and “perspective” run like a refrain through this podcast conversation with Jacques, which I'm sure you'll feel when taking a listen.

Season 1 of the Willing & Abel Podcast is brought to you by M&C Saatchi Abel, a proudly South African award-winning creative company founded on the principle of Brutal Simplicity of Thought.