Business setbacks should be treated as opportunities to find new ways of doing business and create new ventures, says British businessman BJ Cunningham.
Cunningham, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, made his first fortune selling second-hand classic cars; his second producing cigarettes with the unique brand promise that they would kill their users; a third running an advertising agency; and his fourth creating, with his wife, one of the world's most exclusive (and expensive) designers and manufacturers of hand-made women's shoes.
BJ Cunningham - Profitable Death
Cunningham was guest speaker at last week's FM AdFocus advertising awards and the morning after the ceremony launched the FM's Fresh Thinking breakfast series, through which leading local and international entrepreneurs will share their experiences with SA business people.
Cunningham is best known for challenging the British and European tobacco establishment in the 1990s by launching Death Cigarettes. While the rest of the tobacco industry continued to deny its products caused health problems, Death made no secret of the fact. Packets and cigarettes were adorned with the skull-and-crossbones poison logo and the brand was sold with the unique message: enjoy them but understand they will cause you to die a horrible early death. There was even a "light" Death brand "for those who wanted to die more slowly", says Cunningham.
Death, manufactured in the Netherlands, was successful, but what really upset the establishment was a customs loophole that allowed Cunningham's company to act as agent for British smokers wanting to buy cigarettes from Europe, where tobacco taxes are well below the UK rate. At one point, says Cunningham, his company was flying in two planeloads of cigarettes from Europe each week.
Eventually the British government, which saw a threat to its then annual tobacco tax revenues of £14,5bn, acted, and after a costly case at the European court of justice, the loophole was closed. Cunningham and his wife, Georgina Goodman, now run the fashion shoe design and manufacturing chain bearing her name. Paying £1 500 for a pair of her shoes is not uncommon.
Lifetime achievement - Reg Lascaris (left) and John Hunt
Cunningham's lively, self-mocking tone struck just the right chord at the AdFocus awards, which honoured SA's best in the advertising and communications industry. The Forum, in Bryanston, was packed for the event. Awards were presented by FM editor Barney Mthombothi and marketer Yvonne Johnston, who chaired the judging panel.
Big winner on the night was the Ogilvy advertising group. After being pipped at the post last year, Ogilvy Johannesburg was named AdFocus 2009 advertising agency of the year, then collected the effective advertising award for its Shakin' Up KFC campaign for KFC milkshakes.
At a time when most other agencies were cutting staff and experiencing slimmer margins as the recession caused clients to slash advertising budgets, Ogilvy Johannesburg's income grew 18% and it took on new staff in reaction to new business. It also continued to pile up advertising awards, including a grand prix at the recent local Loeries creative festival in Cape Town.
Ogilvy Africa won the inaugural AdFocus award for African agency network of the year. This award recognised the efforts of SA-based networks to share expertise and raise advertising standards across the continent, where advertising conditions and challenges are often a world away from those in SA.
Gloo Digital Design, which seems to have cornered the market in digital awards this year, extended its record by winning another inaugural AdFocus category, for digital agency of the year. Initiative Media, whose highlights last year included winning the SA Breweries account, was our media agency of the year.
Then there were the individual awards. Khaya Dlanga, creative strategic director at Metropolitan Republic and described as the industry's "leading digital citizen", won the New Broom award for hot young talent. The 31-year-old, who has contributed to a string of award-winning advertising campaigns, has been listed by YouTube among its top 20 most influential video bloggers around the world.
Agency leader of the year was Ravi Naidoo, founder of Design Indaba, an annual conference and expo which has put SA design and creativity on the world map and grown into the world's leading multidisciplinary design gathering. The 2009 event in Cape Town attracted hundreds of delegates and exhibitors and 29 000 visitors. Naidoo's efforts, however, go far beyond talking about design. The Indaba is behind a project to design attractive, "livable" low-cost housing, and Naidoo has persuaded government that design and creativity is a potential economic growth sector.
There was a standing ovation from the guests for John Hunt and Reg Lascaris, who jointly won the AdFocus lifetime achievement award. In 1983, they founded the agency which still bears their names despite being part of the global TBWA advertising group. The multi-award-winning agency arguably opened the international door for SA agencies in the 1990s, and was itself named international and European agency of the year. Hunt, who is also an award-winning playwright, is now the TBWA group's worldwide creative director, and Lascaris its president for the Africa, Middle East and Mediterranean region.
Once the awards were over, it was time to party. To illustrate the event's recessionary theme of fighting back from potential knockout, the party area was dominated by a boxing ring in which professional boxers laid into each other. Guests laid into the food and drink with equal enthusiasm and kept going until after midnight. Reinher Behrens, group CE of McCann Worldgroup SA and chairman of the Association for Communication & Advertising, summed up industry reaction to the event: "Award evenings come and go in our business. This was a lekker one - short, sharp, insightful and rewarding. And a good opskop at the end."
Ranking the Analysts 2009
