Strategic marketing enables growth

Celéste Burger assists companies implement brand, creative and marketing strategy with measurable return on marketing investment.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

I realised that the status quo didn’t cater for my character traits, and felt unfulfilled in traditional work environments. I thrive on bringing creative ideas to life, viewing challenges differently, innovating to meet market demands, the freedom to make my own decisions, set my own goals and reap the rewards. I noticed the disconnect between disparate marketing tactics, creative effort, and unmeasured results.

Becoming a Chartered Marketer was a transformative journey. I started an integrated marketing offering focussed on ROMI. With a disposition to continuous learning, marketing is a vast field to deepen one’s knowledge.

Highlight your service offerings, and how your experience unlocks opportunities.

cementing marketing merit. Cross-industry project implementation drives results for my clients.

What have been some key milestones in your career, and what do you contribute these successes to?

Being invited to the “MPP Design for Change” collective project in South Africa. A first of its kind, it donated all proceeds to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital. My work was included in this international travelling exhibition, from New York to Bosnia. This project was not for personal gain and beat any award I won for design, hands down.

I was honoured to be elected President of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and serve on the Board of the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA). Both non-profit organisations enable me to contribute to the industry.

Setting up a creative collaboration hub had long been my dream. This space enables cooperation for creatives and artists, unlocking opportunities. I am inspired by marketing for social change.

Perseverance is the main contributor to my career; seeing setbacks as learning opportunities is challenging but worthwhile.

I provide an outsourced Chief Brand and/or Marketing Officer role to mid-sized companies –my work helps in aligning their business strategy with brand and marketing strategies. I contribute marketing knowledge critical for developing, executing, and integrating marketing efforts across silos and channels, unlocking new opportunities and optimising resources. I own a full-solution brand communications agency, supporting clients with cross-platform tactic implementation. Additionally, I assist in directing brand and meaning, creating a constructive environment

STRATEGIST, CHARTERED MARKETER, ENTREPRENEUR & CREATIVE

BRAND

Burger

How do you stay ahead of marketing trends?

Shared interest groups and networks! Extensive reading, research, case studies and industry leaders keep me updated with technological advancement and customer behaviour. The most exciting opportunities often derive from the cross-pollination of diverse industries. These learnings assist in contextualising impacts on businesses. I explore thought leadership and social philosophers whose central focus is civilisation design and developing new capacities for sense- and choice-making.

What are your thoughts on marketing budgets being cut in times of crisis?

Research consistently demonstrates the positive impact of sustained marketing efforts during economic turbulence for businesses to position themselves for long-term success.

Maintaining or increasing marketing budgets during an economic downturn protects market share. It strengthens brand equity and captures opportunities and customer loyalty. Your message also has a better chance to be heard when everyone else markets less.

How does marketing and branding assist organisations in maintaining their value positioning?

These assist organisations in maintaining their value positioning by differentiating them from competitors, shaping customer perception and brand reputation, effectively communicating value, cultivating customer loyalty, and enabling adaption and innovation.

Brand equity is increased through brand awareness, associations, perceived quality, customer loyalty, proprietary assets and other positive attributes associated with your brand.

How does an outsource CMO or CBO enable growth?

• Identifying emerging market trends, consumer insights, and untapped customer segments. This information is leveraged to develop creative marketing strategies and initiatives that align with the organisation’s objectives and goals.

• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive product development, enhance customer experiences, and create compelling messaging that resonates with target audiences.

• Unlocking marketing channels, technologies, and partnerships to expand the organisation’s reach, competitiveness and influence.

• Tracking KPI’s, measuring effectiveness, and adapting strategies to optimise outcomes.

How do you foresee the evolution of marketing, and how should businesses adapt?

Personalisation. Preventative care. Social interventions. Mind-blowing experiences. AI-powered analytics and machine learning algorithms enable marketers to analyse vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, gaining valuable insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and trends.

You can’t own the headspace of your audience if you don’t understand them.

Forrester noted that insights-driven businesses with advanced capabilities are 8.5 times more likely than their beginner counterparts to report annual revenue growth of 20% or more. We are moving from reactive to predictive decision-making.

AI facilitates predictive modelling, enabling marketers to anticipate customer needs and allows for proactively personalising customer experiences and enhancing marketing effectiveness.

Through big data, AI can analyse millions of online conversations, images, and other assets from thousands of sources and combine that with shopping or engagement behaviours. This allows for the identification of untapped trends and product or service innovation ideas.

The future of marketing is knowing your customer so well that you know what they will need before they do; the challenge is, doing it authentically and ethically.  Contact@on-demand-cmo.com | 082 461 3748