MIKE SHARMAN

Where do you find your news?

For breaking news, always Twitter – it’s the immediacy, the ability to bounce between tabs to corroborate sources and the resultant options to reshare. For long-form and more creative industry curated content, LinkedIn – the algorithm has calculated my need for design and sport-inspired news.

What do you most enjoy about branding?

As consumers, we have more choice than ever before. Effective branding meets at the intersection of art and analytics, and has the potential to elicit tangible emotion with your target market. Humans need to be moved first before they will rationally consider the purchase or investment in a brand.

Describe your average workday.

What’s average? Mondays have the only semblance of repetition with a consistent series of status meetings. Alternatively, I network – on social media and in real life over a flat white – or problem solve, prepare pitches, refine concepts, analyse management accounts, present to clients, take calculated risks, consume content – a lot.

Favourite books?

Shoe Dog was my most recent indulgence. I am a start-up founder, biography fan. Marc Randolph’s That’ll Never Work was my prior read, with No Filter and Billion Dollar Loser piquing multiple interests about the Instagram and WeWork unicorn story and fall from grace, respectively.

Which campaigns have made the biggest impact on you?

Dollar Shave Club and Old Spice viral campaigns stirred the branded content monster in me. There’s an ability to combine storytelling and commercial thinking into a perfect advertising venn diagram. That centre is the sweet spot we strive to recreate.

Lessons Covid-19 taught the industry?

In the land of pandemic paralysis, bravery and nimbleness cuts through the clutter of inaction. Our best piece of creative – #MyKreepyTeacher – went from concept to viral in 96 hours because we were dogged about making the story.

What keeps you awake at night?

I leave everything out on the park during the day, so I can sleep as hard as possible at night ... until my toddlers wake me for a witching-hour snuggle in the subzero temperatures of a typical Jozi winter night.

What drives you nuts?

Mediocrity and NAFIs – people with No Ambition F***all Interest.

Describe your media consumption – what do you listen to (podcasts, music, etc).

I love Reid Hoffman’s (founder of LinkedIn) Masters of Scale. My Apple music vacillates between contemporary hits and Disney smashes, for the kids.

Video-content wise, I love Netflix sport – Drive to Survive, The Last Dance. We’ve recently created our own doccie about Eastern Cape rugby.

By Georgina Crouth