Penquin is a full-service, independent advertising agency

Collaborating with a marketing agency can free you up to shine in your core role.  

Getting to grips with the complex and challenging world of marketing may seem like a minefield, especially when a bulletproof marketing strategy is one of the cornerstones of growth and success. Trying to juggle strategy, implementation, branding, social media and getting a handle on the dizzying world of digital – all while measuring metrics and analysing return on investment – it’s enough to give anyone a headache.

If your marketing department is beginning to look like the cast from The Walking Dead, it’s probably time to consider outsourcing to an agency.

These days, marketing budgets are tight and every cent spent needs to be accounted for, and that makes calculating a correct ROI even more important. Do this using key indicators to determine whether your marketing efforts are converting into actual cold, hard cash coming back into your business.

Here we look into the benefits of strategic brand partnerships (co-branding) and how they can be used to get maximum marketing campaign traction.

Brands are struggling with diminishing budgets and increasing difficulty to stand out from their competitors - it’s hard to make an impact in a crowded marketplace.

A solution few brands consider is co-branding, or forming a strategic brand partnership, with another brand. This offers two powerhouse brands the opportunity to leverage your combined influence, reputation and audiences in order to get maximum traction from your campaigns.

Penquin’s MD, Veronica Wainstein, writes about her rise through the glass ceiling and the challenges other women face doing the same.

I’ll be frank - when I joined Penquin, after nine years in marketing - I was joining what was pretty much an all boy’s club.

Now, I run the company.

Similar to most other marketing companies in South Africa at the time, every head of department and all the top tiers of management were men. Despite this, and because of my passion and experience on other accounts, I was tasked with working on what has now become our biggest account: Suzuki. Though a great opportunity for me, the auto-industry is a very male dominated environment and I literally learnt to ‘speak car’ while on the job.

Finding the right candidate for your marketing department can be a long and tricky process. Here’s a few tips to help you weed out the talent from the crowd.

A talented marketing team can help to transform your bottom line – but finding and hiring the right mix of marketers is a tough challenge.

As pointed out in an article by Benji Hyam on Grow and Convert, the field is flooded with enthusiastic job seekers but it can be a nightmare sifting out the ones who bring expertise, energy and flair to the table. The trouble is that someone who seems picture perfect on paper may not pan out so well in real life.