Thanks to my friend Dave Duarte (who many consider to be a thought leader of marketing in South Africa), I once again presented my keynote presentation, “Branding & Illusion”, to his “Nomadic Marketing” course. Normally this course is run at the UCT Graduate School of Business, but this one was done with the Old Mutual Business School.
I
really do enjoy these presentations because the class & I have a lot of fun being amazed by magic, but also connecting the experience to simple but important marketing tactics. But I must admit … I was a little intimidated by the list of respected experts who were also speaking during this course.
“Presenters that I would like to give prop’s to are Dave Duarte (programme founder and much more), Mike Perk (MD at World Wide Creative), Rob Stokes (founder of Quirk eMarketing — check out their text book licensed under the creative commons agreement), Marcel Oudejans (Magician and Marketer, I kid you not!) and Allan Kent (Group Head: Saatchi & Saatchi @Play). I found what they had to say especially interesting (Dave and Allan took the time to chat to me over lunch regarding my development in the field, which was not necessary, and which i really have respect for), so if you want to find out more, follow their links.”
Source: markpretorius.com
Unfortunately, due to scheduled meetings, I was only able to be there for my own presentation so I was unable to watch all the speakers. But Mark Pretorius, who works at Old Mutual, wrote a blog post with some of his highlights:
“My most important
out-takes from the course for me were:
- Strategy embraces trends, and tactics use applications
- Be relevant, authentic, succinct and immediate
- Think like the client (this is the most “duh” item, but it really does take someone to remind you to do this when you get into the daily grind of things)
- Sell the advantages, not the features
- Talk to people in the common ground between what i believe to be true and what they believe to be true, or they won’t understand me or care
- Create a media neutral campaign and use that across mediums, don’t create something for TV and adapt it to other media.”
Source: markpretorius.com
Although I didn’t know it, Mark was filming one of my demonstrations with his cellphone camera, which he was kind enough to share on Youtube. Apologies for the quality of the sound, but it was a great attempt nonetheless. Thanks Mark!
Marcel is an amazing magician who makes you go 'WOOOOW' and who's a great entertainer at any type of event where you need to leave a lasting impression for guests, suppliers, family and friends.
