At the end of the day. Hmm...

I've been very privilaged to be here at Cannes. I've attended intimate seminars and masterclasses with some of the world's greatest ad people. Yesterday was Jeff Goodby. Today was Chuck Porter and David Droga, who spoke about how to start an ad agency from scratch. They are all highly respected the world over and successful and they all had the same thing to say: for an agency to succeed both creatively and in business whether it's already established or just starting out, it has to have a purpose and a set of ideals and stay true to them absolutely, not just on paper. It has to have a workforce of believers in both the company and its mission and above all, the agency and those within it from the mail room to the CEO, the junior creative to the ECD, have to continuously challenge the status quo. And it doesn't mean late nights and weekends. It means working smart and hard in the right ways. Sure, we've heard it all before but here is proof that this kind of thinking works, that it has always worked. Hopefully there were enough South African agency reps in the audience to take note and instead of merely agreeing, perhaps they'll act and follow suit.