Ask Justin Spratt who he is and he'll tell you that he's just a bunch of atoms in the form of a human being trying to change the world one digital campaign at a time. Spratt's passionate about the Internet's ability to affect change and to soften the harder edges of capitalism. This desire to try and make capitalism more responsible, accountable and human comes from Spratt's experiences after realising the dream of becoming being a trader on Wall Street.
After working at the credit derivatives trading desk of Morgan Stanley, Spratt realised that making margin by simply being smarter than your counterpart wasn't all that fulfilling. He longed for something more meaningful. “You don't create anything. You just lubricate the cogs of the economy. This is not necessarily bad, but created a dissonance for me.”
The love of technology and the Internet made the transition from investment banking to the Internet business very easy for Spratt, and he joined Internet Solutions, where he says he was lucky enough to work with some of the smartest people in South Africa. “The top people at IS were unparalleled in their field, and some of the best engineers and business people worked for that company during the first 15 years of its life.”
At IS, Spratt became well known for his role in helping found idea incubator IS Labs, which helped people with innovative ideas to get the funding and assistance they required to get their projects off the ground. IS Labs incubated projects like Obami, The Daily Maverick, and Jamiix Social Exchange.
“Innovation is very important for business, personally and for society at large. Innovation talks to Darwin's concept that the species that is 'most adaptable to change' survives. Doing the same stuff over and over leads to stasis and, in my view, eventually degeneration. Of course not all innovation is good or created equal, but simply put, you need to adapt or die.” On a more personal level, Spratt thinks of innovation as growth. “Hopefully we change those things that are psychologically taxing and do more of the stuff that is accretive.
In part, it is innovation that took Spratt to Quirk, because it was a challenge that enabled the conquering of new professional and personal frontiers. A garage business built from zero to hero by Rob Stokes, Quirk is fast turning out to be one of those South African success stories that is taking on the world.
“I have been at Quirk for close on three months and not in a very long time have I seen such a concentration of talented people. The last time was IS seven years ago.” Spratt says his role at Quirk isn't over-defined. “Primarily it is new business for the group, focusing on Johannesburg and heading up group marketing.” A smart move on Quirk's part, because Spratt is likely to play a strong role growing Quirk's Jozi office, and could bolster the agency's drive to offshore business.
Hard work is very rare.
Justin Spratt, managing partner, Quirk
ITWeb steps inside Spratt's mind for a little dig around and to discover his views on South Africa, Australia, and digital marketing.
ITWeb: Who do you most admire?
Justin Spratt: Abraham Lincoln for leadership. Bill Gates for his market genius. Steve Jobs for product genius.
ITWeb: What's the most important lesson you've learned in business?
Spratt: Hard work is very rare. Finding people who work hard, apply their mind and work smart is like finding a hen's tooth in haystack. It is nigh on extinct these days. Find these people and success is inevitable.
ITWeb: What brought you from Australia to South Africa, and why have you stayed?
My mother is South African. She is a Lamberti and cousin to the famous Mark. We have a large extended family here and family is very important to me. What kept me here are the people. South Africans manage to circumvent adversity every time. I think it is the South African "make a plan" culture. South Africans don't mind hard work either. I lived in the UK and Australia for many years and while Australians are very savvy generally, neither they or people in the UK work as hard as South Africans.
ITWeb: If you were the head of the DTI in South Africa and had carte blanche, what changes would you make to rapidly grow entrepreneurialism in South Africa?
Spratt: I would radically overhaul the tax system - give large tax rebates to companies who invest in certain sectors and give grants to start-ups in those sectors - macro economically you would need to cap it at 10 years, but that should be enough for the necessary cultural shift. I would repeal this stupid new Act no 51, which states that any IP developed using government funds, even as loosely as universities, is the government's property - long and complicated, but it is seriously flawed and will not bode well for South African entrepreneurship.
ITWeb: Will there be a high noon show-down between digital and 'traditional' agencies?
Spratt: This has happened in industries before. Rail gave way to road; telegraph to phone; radio to TV. Traditional will not die but it will eventually be superseded by digital. There won't be a showdown as that would imply digital competes with traditional, which is simply not the case. Digital is simply the preferred medium because of the convenience and cost. It really isn't more complex than this, in my view. The reality is that information wants to be set free, whether that is in the form of the digital bits of a Hollywood movie or your favourite blog. Digital allows that information to be set free. And we humans like free - freedom of choice, freedom to share and freedom to speak. Digital is the medium that complies.
ITWeb: What's the size of SA's digital marketing industry?
Spratt: My guesstimate is about R1.5 billion, if you add together agency revenue (which is a bit of a thumb suck, I will admit) and all the digital media sold, you get close to this figure.
ITWeb: Do big brands get social media?
Spratt: Increasingly yes, but in South Africa there is still a way to go. Most of the people in power are still learning how the medium works for them. Understandably, they are cautious. If they threw everything at every 'new thing' they might not be where they are now. And the old adage is true: "No one ever got fired from doing what worked before." Increasingly though, people will be under pressure to deliver the results that digital marketing can offer and we are seeing digital marketing budgets increasing at much faster rates. Currently, digital spend is around 5% of marketing budgets. We believe it should be at around 20%.
ITWeb: What's your advice to big brands entering the fray?
We humans like free - freedom of choice, freedom to share and freedom to speak. Digital is the medium that complies.
Justin Spratt, managing partner, Quirk
Spratt: Educate yourself. There are some excellent resources out there to give marketers a thorough understanding of the digital marketing landscape. A Web site is not digital marketing. It is one, albeit important, aspect, but by itself it is just infrastructure, much like the corporate HQ or store. You need to be able drive traffic to the site (social media and Google) and then convert them once they are there (analytics and creative). Skills are rare, which makes it tough, but there are some very cost-effective ways to get exposed to digital marketing that can bring in strong IP at low brand risk.
ITWeb: What do technology brands need to know about marketing technology?
Spratt: The holy trinity: Facebook, Twitter and a good thought leadership blog. These are not success factors anymore - they are hygiene factors, things that need to be done. The success factors come from what you put on those platforms, and that process starts with 'what is valuable to our community' rather than the old school 'how can we promote our business?' The latter is crass and kitsch now. Consumers have brand fatigue. They want to love brands so it makes the consuming that much easier... so brands need to ask themselves: 'How can we get our consumers to love us?' The answer is: value and listening. The listening part is customer service and the value part is customer love.
ITWeb: What opportunities are there for digital marketers and agency owners in South Africa?
Spratt. Massive growth. Digital budgets are growing 50% year-on-year and to be frank, they should be growing faster to get in line with the global counterparts. With this flow of money, consolidation will occur. Big above-the-line agencies will look to acquire the bigger digital agencies. Smaller agencies will need to be the very best in their niche or need to be prepared to merge with other agencies in order to offer a comprehensive enough service and get economies of scale.
ITWeb: You used to spend a lot of time surfing. Is it true that surfing teaches you something about life?
Spratt: Absolutely. At the risk of going hippie, riding waves is very symbolic of life. Often you cannot control what 'mother nature' is going to send to you in the form of waves and you have to do your best given what you have. But you can be smart about the wave presented to you. You can ride 'in the barrel', which is hard but exhilarating. You can 'hit the lip' and 'get air', which is mind blowing... or you can ride straight down the wave while it crumbles and that gets boring very quickly. It is much like doing the same thing every day, with thoughts of where it is taking you... Life - the true rat race. You want to be riding along the wave, as it barrels and breaks across the beach. It is an extremely strong metaphor for life.
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