Sep 25, 2025 · 51 min · 15 segments
How do marketers balance creativity with delivering business impact? In this episode of The Lead Creative, I speak with Mandisa Theko-Khitsane, Chief Marketing Officer at Sanlam Retail Mass and a…
Mongezi MtatiHost
Mandisa, as we start, if you could make a choice between working with unlimited data but no creativity or unlimited creativity but no data, what would you choose?
You know, so it's important for me to have access to information, to have access to data points, numbers.
I am unfortunately not a creative person, which is very hard to say as a marketer.
But I definitely know how to make the numbers tell a beautiful story.
And how much do you think that would sort of take you down the road of engaging better with your customers without having the creative side, but only the data?
And for me, especially when it comes to our customers, we need to know what they want.
from the data, the communities that you serve and the problems are not the same.
So I think data for me, it almost gives you a map of where to go, what didn't work, who's there.
And that can also be creative because it tells you the journey you have taken.
It tells you the various stories of your communities that you serve, the customers and how to better be a better brand for them.
How do you measure the impact of creativity and marketing and driving business outcomes? Because a lot of the time we have these really big campaigns.
We do this massive marketing work, this heavy lifting, but measuring the impact sometimes is, especially to business outcomes, becomes a bit of a challenge.
What have you found to help you in understanding that impact or at least being able to measure it?
Mandisa, as we start, if you could make a choice between working with unlimited data but no creativity or unlimited creativity but no data, what would you choose?
You know, so it's important for me to have access to information, to have access to data points, numbers.
I am unfortunately not a creative person, which is very hard to say as a marketer.
But I definitely know how to make the numbers tell a beautiful story.
And how much do you think that would sort of take you down the road of engaging better with your customers without having the creative side, but only the data?
And for me, especially when it comes to our customers, we need to know what they want.
from the data, the communities that you serve and the problems are not the same.
So I think data for me, it almost gives you a map of where to go, what didn't work, who's there.
And that can also be creative because it tells you the journey you have taken.
It tells you the various stories of your communities that you serve, the customers and how to better be a better brand for them.
How do you measure the impact of creativity and marketing and driving business outcomes? Because a lot of the time we have these really big campaigns.
We do this massive marketing work, this heavy lifting, but measuring the impact sometimes is, especially to business outcomes, becomes a bit of a challenge.
What have you found to help you in understanding that impact or at least being able to measure it?
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