Marketing Leadership In Complex African Markets: Lindy-Lou Alexander, CEO of WPP Open X Africa

Yeah.

Now, just to get a bit more into the specifics, you've had a continent-wide vantage point, working with Tiger Brands, Vodacom, Standard Bank, now WPP OpenX, working in 56 different countries.

What about marketing today do you most enjoy, and how is marketing evolving with so much happening around marketing as you've come to know it?

What I enjoy about marketing right now is that we live in a global world.

So the globe is our playground.

And everyone is influenced by global trends and nuances.

Yet, particularly in Africa, because we are the youngest continent on the globe, everyone is actually so interested in personalization.

I get you.

So I call it the local local.

So what I'm loving is that you can't get bored.

The stories don't have to be the same.

And even if you're working on global brands, you've got to localize it.

So for me, that is the beauty of a diverse community.

continent like ours and um i would be bored if i worked in anything that's just too homogeneous and too much of the same

yeah

so um yeah that that is what i love about marketing in this era

so one of the things that comes up time and time again in the conversations that we have is this idea of localization versus a global brand coming in to south africa tanzania the drc all the countries that you serve sometimes resonates because of that global international status about the brand but at the same time there's this nuance that you need to understand about the person at a local level and all the countries i've mentioned you've you've you've worked in tanzania mozambique all of these countries right right and many others um what is it about this local nuance that international or global brands need to understand to remain relevant in africa again africa is not a country so i'm using that sort of you know generically understanding

this yes so and i would like The word global, global is such a boardroom word.

The consumer will call it international, you know, the international label, the international labels.

And we also, I mean, because I also grew up in the era where Nike is one of the most beautiful brands because it still outstood the test of time.

But everyone wanted brands from America, you know, back in the, and before Levi's and brands came in.

So internationalism was a sense of differentiation.

So in brands, and this is where consumerism becomes important.

You know, I love it because especially when I worked in the bank, everything was like, you know, marketing doesn't matter.

I'm like, whoa.