Despite marketing’s growing complexity, great ideas remain the industry’s most powerful currency. “Consumers don’t have a problem with advertising — they have a problem with interruption. We reject bad ads, but we share great ones," says César Vacchiano, president and CEO of Scopen.
This idea is backed by history with campaigns like Just Do It,Priceless and A Diamond Is Forever, which all delivered extraordinary long-term value for the brands behind them.
Vacchiano presented this to South Africa's marketing and advertising industry in Johannesburg last month, at the Scopen Africa Decade Awards, which celebrated a decade of Agency Scope research in South Africa.
He arrived with 10 years of data and a clear-eyed account of where the industry actually stands.
Doing more with less
He says that the industry is at a genuine turning point, and organisations that fail to adapt will be left behind.
The numbers tell a consistent global story.
According to Gartner's annual CMO Spend Survey, marketing budgets have fallen from 11% of company revenue in 2021 to 7.7% in 2024.
South Africa's marketing leaders face their own version of this pressure — more channels, more partners and rising expectations, with budgets that haven't kept pace.
Scopen's own research reinforces the point. Brands now work with an average of 13.3 agency and platform partners globally, up from 11.9 in 2022.
In South Africa, digital now represents approximately 36% of marketing budgets, with paid and social media accounting for nearly 65% of that spend.
"Most CMOs feel they have less money than before," Vacchiano told the audience. "Not because budgets have collapsed, but because they now stretch across more channels, platforms and capabilities than ever."
The CMO role rewritten
Perhaps the most striking finding Vacchiano shared came from an Intermedia Global poll: 92% of CMOs said they would have chosen a different career had they known how tech-heavy the role would become.
Among those with three to six years in the role, that figure hit 100%.
"Marketing has become one of the most technology-driven functions in any organisation," Vacchiano says.
In 35% of companies, the CMO now owns the martech stack — ahead of both the CFO and the head of IT.
The pressure is real. But so is the opportunity.
CMOs navigating both brand strategy and technology infrastructure are reclaiming influence at the executive table, working in closer alignment with CEOs than at any point in recent memory.
Mastering the creator economy
The creator economy has added another dimension entirely.
Unilever's CEO declared the company would invest 20 times more in influencer marketing.
L'Oréal now collaborates with nearly 70,000 influencers globally.
For agencies, orchestrating these creator networks is fast becoming a core capability rather than a niche offering.
Where AI meets creativity
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the industry, but not, Vacchiano argues, in the way many initially feared.
"AI is no longer seen primarily as a tool to lower costs," he says.
"It's a tool to accelerate processes and boost creativity."
South African marketers back this up: their top expectation of AI is agility and time optimisation, followed by enhanced creativity. Cost reduction ranked lower.
The agencies extracting real value from AI are those combining technological capability with strong strategic thinking — not those treating it as a headcount reduction exercise.
Strategy has a price tag
One of the more consequential shifts in Scopen's research is the growing recognition that strategic thinking is a billable service.
In South Africa, 74.4% of marketers would pay extra for research and data capabilities; 60.1% would pay extra for AI tools. Output-based remuneration — tied to projects and campaigns — is now the preferred model for 65.6% of respondents.
"Agencies should be compensated for the thinking that drives results, not just the hours spent producing work," Vacchiano said.
It is a shift with significant implications for how agencies price, structure and position themselves.
Rising to the challenge
Spanning more than 2,300 interviews in South Africa since 2017, Scopen’s data reveals an industry that is more demanding, complex and exciting than the one it first encountered.
Johanna McDowell, Scopen's partner in South Africa and CEO of the Independent Agency Search & Selection Company, captured what the next decade demands, "The most valuable agency partners bring strategic thinking, technological capability and creative excellence together — not in sequence, but simultaneously.”
The industry has changed. The agencies and marketers who shape its future will be those who embrace that change without losing sight of what has always mattered most: the power of a great idea.
Vacchiano will present these findings and more at the IAS Masterclass on 6 May. For more information or to register, contact robynne@agencyselection.co.za.
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