The advertising legend David Ogilvy once said that after years of managing an ad agency he had come to the conclusion that: "The top man has one principal responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work."
No-one can accuse the 2009 winner of the AdFocus New Broom Award of lacking that maverick spirit. Khaya Dlanga, creative strategic director at Metropolitan Republic, once used YouTube to post a pay-rise demand to a former agency, The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town. Executive creative director Ross Chowles can laugh about it now, but he admits it was a shock at the time.
Khaya Dlanga - From herdboy to Twitter
The New Broom award is for outstanding up-and-coming talent. Like the other AdFocus judges, Chowles believes Dlanga fits the bill perfectly. He is already considered by many to be the leading digital citizen in the creative industry. An all-rounder, whose nonmedia talents include stand-up comedy, Dlanga is also an accomplished copywriter.He has won several creative awards including Loeries and Eagles. In 2005, he contributed to a Cannes Gold for Nando's "uCarmen eKhayelitsha" campaign. That year, he also won the Black Eagle award, sometimes considered the most difficult accolade to attain in SA.
The award was for a Bell Continental campaign.
But it is his understanding of new media and knowing what makes online audiences tick that has earned Dlanga worldwide respect. In 2007, global social networking platform YouTube listed him among the top 20 most influential video bloggers in its hall of fame.
Within SA, he's seen as someone who has evolved and adapted to the changing communications landscape. "When you look at traditional advertising people, Khaya is definitely at the forefront of his peer group," says Allan Kent, head of Saatchi & Saatchi's new digital division, At Play. "He's come from an unexpected place, being a copywriter, to be very active in this space."
I meet the 31-year-old at Metropolitan's offices in Rivonia, Johannesburg. It's been four months since he was promoted from copywriter to his current position, one, he says, that allows him to merge his traditional and new media expertise. His responsibilities involve mapping out the strategic direction of campaigns.
"What this job has allowed me to do is inject some creativity into strategy," he says. Among his clients at Metropolitan are FNB, whose account the agency won earlier this year, and MTN.
Dressed smart-casual in navy jeans, black shirt and matching blazer, it is Dlanga's in-your-face red sunglasses that reveal his flamboyant personality. Loud, witty and with a boisterous laugh, he exudes a carefree air that tells you he's not one to conform. It's evident in his looks and his approach to doing things.
Listening to him talk about how YouTube is not what it used to be, it's hard to believe that this creative was once a cattle herder in the Eastern Cape village of Dutyini.
Dlanga was raised by his grandparents. When his grandmother died, he was sent to Little Flower Junior Secondary School in the village of Qumbu, and later matriculated from Hudson Park High School in East London.
Though advertising was his first career choice, Dlanga says he also entertained the idea of becoming a lawyer or a journalist. But the world of advertising appealed more to his curious and daring nature.
It is these qualities that have led him to where he is today. It was while surfing the Internet looking for a YouTube clip from the 1992 independent film Glengarry Glen Ross that he was exposed to the world of social media. "Looking through, I saw faces of normal people who looked like me, talking to the camera. Suddenly, I found myself more interested in what they had to say than in what I was looking for."
Curious to find out how the platform worked, he posted a video of himself online. His had no audio, just text. When he logged back in to check how his clip had been received, he got the shock of his life. "People had commented on the video and they liked it." His skills have developed since then to the point that he was named winner of the SABC Highway Africa Digital Journalism award, for individuals who recognise the role of digital technologies in communication.
He says the growth of social media marks a change in thinking among consumers and in the creative industry. It also marks the end of the era of idea-hogging. "Social media is about sharing. It has become about us and not a me-thing. I have learnt that the more you share, the more you get ideas and have access to certain things and people you would not ordinarily have had access to."
His eyes pop when I mention that I've only recently opened a Twitter account. Dlanga "twits" almost every five minutes. By mid-September, he had almost 1 400 followers on Twitter, according to Twitterholic.com.
He says social media has "definitely made my life fuller. I engage more with the world now than I would have been able to do before".
One of the people Dlanga admires - a maverick in his own right - is French-born creative extraordinaire David Droga, founder of the New York-based Droga5 agency. Dlanga says it is Droga's thinking and approach to advertising that makes him a fan. "He's always thinking of new ways of doing things. He's current and knows what's going on in the world."
On his career aspirations, Dlanga wants to be at the forefront of how people consume and understand new media in SA. "I would like to be seen as one of the pioneers of this brave new world. I'd like to see myself leading a strategic online creative process because without creativity, strategy doesn't work online and vice versa. "
Says Kent: "What positions Khaya nicely is that the best way of learning is experience, which is what he's been doing. The experience of building a brand, which is what he's done for himself, is something he can easily translate for clients because he knows what's worked."
According to Jupiter Cape Town MD Kevin Aspoas: "Khaya is a different kettle of fish. He is a different type of trendsetter, who embraced new media at an early age. He is one of those people who definitely has the potential to be great one day."
