User:Dirtydog
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A Brand & Communication Strategist for today.
A passionate brand, advertising & communication strategist who, when not picking brains and amazing marketing people, enjoys the wind in his hair, sun in the face and mud in his teeth. Yes, he loves mountainbiking and cannot wait to get out along the river, through the trees and over the rocks. "Give me an hour and I'm in heaven", he says. "Give you two hours with me and you'll be converted too."
A Batchelor of Arts graduate from UNISA in South Africa, his other passion started years back when he first made contact with an Apple Macintosh. He stated, "Somewhere in the middle of my career, having spent some time in both marketing & advertising, I was quizzed by two different people in two highly respected recruitment agencies for the marketing & advertising sectors, as to which company I would like to work for when being interviewed by them. I said, “I want to work on the best brand in the world – Apple”
They replied that this would be (nearly) impossible because the closest they could offer was MTN or KFC but I had already worked for the latter and would soon for the former. My problem was that I had seen the light (the refraction from the apple colour-banded logo), knew the brand, company history and was already a more-than-loyal brand follower. I also knew where Apple was ranked in the worldwide Interbrand brand rankings and to crown it, Brian Seligman, the then Marketing Director of Apple SA said to me when I was somewhat younger, … “Apple is one of the finest brands to ever work with”.
I never forgot. I use and work with Apple every day, ‘living the brand I believe in … because it works for me.
Then I read Steve Jobs’ graduation address to Stanford University, *“Stay hungry. Stay foolish”. That did it for me
The time has come after so many years and the passion is even stronger …
We all have a purpose here on Earth in our respective lives & God guides me in this each & every day to be better each day, with humility, care & thoughtful consideration. Perhaps we all can contribute to those around us, the world in which we live and the faith we have in God, ourselves and the fact that the world is undoudtedly a better place because we choose to make it so.
Having been independent for the last 5 years to focus on servicing clients and their businesses, the core focus has been a strategic business focus on aspects of brand and communication strategy for clients that require specialised brand services. These have included: • Managing the client service portfolio for various ad agencies • Development of the communication and positioning strategy for Mikado Property Developments • Advertising agency portfolio management and development for Objectivity, • Database strategy, population and verification for Toyota After-Sales, • Strategic positioning and CI design & development for Global Trade Solutions, • Marketing strategy and advertising campaign development for A.N.T. (Advanced Netinfo Technologies to enable SMS based DRM and database population for clients and own business), • Business Form development, design and production for Private Sector Finance, • Strategic partner to Two Tone Advertising for Government (‘Batho Pele’) Tender Pitch , • Promotional campaign development, production & implementation for Sandton Medi-Clinic.
His design background and exposure to fine art from a young age has given added insight & dimension from the initial thinking outline to the total solution, whatever it may be.
Current Responsibilities
The House on the Hill is positioned as a strategic branding, communication and design resource to manage and implement a diverse range of primarily brand-building services for clients and agencies alike. This includes the management of repeat business for clients such as Private Sector Finance and Toyota After-Sales through delivering the finished product through contracted call centre staff, freelance designers and finished art freelancers. Other business partners and suppliers fall into this category as well. Current projects requiring dedication are: • Identifying, setting up and ‘pulling together’ the ideal resources and companies that would make up a comprehensive and creatively & resource competent ATL BEE advertising agency for a client; • The development and delivery of new business for the advertising agency portfolio for Objectivity that will result in the channelling of agency clients to the company, • Acting as a copywriting and strategic resource to various companies and, where required, as a sounding-board & independent resouce to design &/ad agencies
Previous Experience
With more than a decade as an operator in the South African Special Forces, tenacity and the need for dirty tricks to get the job done have been a constant reminder of some of the good points and those not so good when i comes to working with people & their values. After all, these values dictate how they live, make choices, decisions and experinec everything they do ... which includes reading, deciding, buying and telling others. Tapping into this psyche through understanding the whole communication process and its subtle and hard influences is why Ashton's experience ads immense value to any communication project he touches.
After a long and decidedly different career in the military, the petroleum industry beckoned with an offer that could not be refused. After quick promotion he moved to Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon, his years of military team medic experience helping with sutures, intra-ocular lenses and scalpels. Military instruction lead him to Wilson Learning where the first inkling of brain food came in the form of teaching & leading others: Strategy is King! KFC wanted some of this touch and after four years he moved upwards into advertising, an opportunity he welsomed, to see clients from the 'other side of the fence'
Paper Moon was a good grounding and from there VWV, the multimedia & production company in Kyalami satisfied his quest for more, particularly in the early stages of big web design for the likes of SAA & Nandos. This opened the doors to the cellular phone industry that was just starting, to Radiospoor Cellular. At the same time, consulting for clients he'd met, Greg slowly built up a base of clients who used his knowledge and expertise to assist them, constantly declining offers to join them. MTN recruited Ashton to run the South African service provider base of 9 SP's 350 plus outlets and growing. Here the skill of communication strategy became more concise & accurate with the development of the MTN brand communication strategy into all of Africa; a tiresome and demanding role.
After three years of frustration, the offer to head up one of the strong design agencies was accepted. As MD for Africa & the client base consisting of both local and international clients, Ashton took the bull by the horns with big prospects looming. The nature of the two portfolios varied from on-the-edge new digital applications to conventional brands such as The Sandton Convention Centre, Henkel, Barloworld, Alpha Cement & Sasol. Focus on revenue streams and profitability was matched with the resulting development of new skills and capabilities to enable future growth in areas where the marketplace was leading & needed to be taken.
Change again, with another big agency where cellular, B2B E-commerce, financial and IT accounts were the order of the day. Accounts were diverse, ranging MTN Business (SA), MTN Swaziland, Transnet’s B2B, Websoft & African Bank, these being the larger and more recognisable of the account portfolio held.
The beast in the belly was growing stronger, demanding more and that took the man to market and brought on the strategy and resulting rewards
Career Interests and Core Competencies
Despite a strong but unconventional military leadership style he has an ability to get the best out of teams of people and suppliers and found sales management an easy extension of the expected function in completing nearly any task. Having a keen interest in advertising, branding and the overall strategic process to effective communication and delivery; allowing him & his team to deliver directly or through the team of competent and challenging individuals. "My management style is participative, he says, "with a military approach to the end result, in accountable responsibility matched by team effort".
“Leading by example”.
