ideology’s team stems from decades of evolution from numerous faculties of industry, doing the actual ‘hard graft’ on the ground, with over 20 years of experience, providing the necessary background and direction that has made ideology what it is today.

To highlight some of this experience, it started with a production company in 2000, producing corporate videos and doing design work that we still create to this day. In 2006, this experience grew into a promotions agency, delivering in-store and out-of-home activations throughout the country in various locations for numerous well-known FMCG, pharmaceutical, beverage and liquor brands.

Back in 2009, this experience diversified into incorporating a company involved in Audio-Visual technologies, not only learning about the very AV equipment and methods we use in staging events today, but the techniques around doing unique, innovative executions that no one in the country knew how to do at the time (which many still currently don’t). These included innovations such as holographics, augmented and virtual reality, 3D screens, motion simulators, gesture and touch technologies, along with other video, audio, interactive and even scent technologies.

This company was also heavily involved in staging design and manufacture as well as exhibition stand design and building, which has driven the business we still do a lot of within ideology.

In addition, it also set the framework for unique content production knowledge as well, using unusual and unknown production techniques to create visually appealing content that would ‘blow audiences away’, from the realms of filming and editing techniques, to 3D and animation, to audio production and even programming.

This combined with entertainment and other impactful additions in order to create ‘the overall show’.

All of the above moulding the company we are today, flawlessly combining all the necessary skills essential to hosting a successful activity and ensuring we satisfy every customer need, with a mindset to applying or finding new and unique ways to achieve results that stand out of the crowd.

Ideology’s mission statement is to create intimate and tangible connections between our customer and the intended audience through experiences, where message retention and reach results are improved by utilizing creative, non-traditional and innovative methods, ensuring all elements are correctly integrated into a quality solution, delivering the ‘golden thread’ throughout.

We are driven by a questioning spirit by asking the Who, What, How, Why, Where and When questions, ensuring we grasp every aspect of the requirement and comprehend why we are doing it, as well as what needs to be achieved. This simple methodology exponentially improves delivery since it is thoroughly understood and thought through. Questions like Why are we at that location? What do we hope to achieve? Who are we talking to? How do we need to say it? ensures we always hit the nail on the head.

But at our core we are innovators with our main purpose or existence revolving around being better, doing things differently, thinking about what and why we are doing it, in order to improve on the standard and exceed expectations. In this day and age, just doing the ordinary is just not good enough anymore. We have to break through the clutter and find new ways to impress, in order to create sufficient visual impact with our audiences.

The word ideology means a method of ideals or a belief system, where we certainly have very strong ideals and beliefs in what we do and how we do it, which is why we chose the name. For one, we believe in extremely ethical and transparent business practices, often by sharing more than the average supplier and by being brutally honest with customers, so that we build trust and partnerships with our clients in order to promote long-term relationships.

As agency, we believe it is OUR duty and mandate to advise our customers, based on our extensive past experience, on best practices in order to achieve best results and create the impact required. We believe that WE hold the responsibility and accountability for the projects we choose to engage in and that the standard and quality of execution matches or exceed expectations of our client’s and that of the industry at large, or even our own. We are therefore steadfast in ensuring this is exactly what happens. We will never deliver what we don’t believe in ourselves.

This exhibits our key belief system, but to find out more about our ideals, please take a read at some of our opinion pieces here on our LinkedIn articles: Why is there such a great divide between Marketing and Corporate Events?, The DEATH of traditional Powerpoint Presentations at Events and the need to rethink how we conduct Training and Events in a Post Coronavirus-Lockdown World.

Why do we even need to be different? In this day in age it is becoming harder and harder to reach audiences and create impact (see our opinion piece on shorter attention spans). As the population grows and new businesses enter the market, it is also becoming more and more difficult to distinguish between projects and the agencies themselves, that delivered on those projects. The current level is the new norm, as it goes with all things over time. It’s therefore imperative that we continue to evolve, improve, differentiate and distinguish ourselves over others.

Here is how we stay different:

1. Our cross-industry experience gives us valuable insight into looking at the bigger picture and ensuring we impact all the correct touch-points, which makes our key strength: STRATEGY. For instance our knowledge of marketing and sales, advertising, above- and below-the-line marketing techniques gives us a full scope.
2. Our specialist knowledge gave us access to experience many others have never had before. For example our experience in Audio Visual technologies sets us apart from many in the industry.
3. Our core focus on innovation to ensure impact, makes us unique since we know where and how to apply it for best results.
4. Our questioning spirit means we always asking questions to ensure we completely understand what we are doing and comprehend why we are doing it.
5. Analysing common barriers or weaknesses inherent in tasks and activities ensures we are always trying to improve on the standard.
6. Connecting creativity with logic is such an important technique we use to overcome overly creative concepts that don’t deliver results.
7. Personal investment to quality by being a small team ensures our eyes are on everything in order to uphold a long-standing reputation.
8. Working within very short timelines is essential in a modern digital society that’s evolving constantly and quickly, which we are best situated to deliver in short time frames due to our personal investment and full-time dedication to the projects we engage in. Quality over Quantity.
9. Flexibility and adaptability is equally important in an evolving landscape, which a boutique agency such as ours is always able to adapt and morph to the needs of the client and the project, versus larger companies.
10. Working within tight budgets is also imperative in this economic landscape and again our small focused team keeps costs low and overheads manageable in order to cope with budget restrictions.
11. Controlling supply chain through experience, since at some point in our evolution we did the actual hard graft work on the ground that we now expect of the supplier. This means we able to manage them more closely and understand how to get the best out of that component.
12. Integration with other areas to ensure the golden thread is carried throughout due to our cross-industry knowledge of the full marketing scope.
13. Targeting overall results and ROI is an essential benefit we deliver since we completely believe that actual results are everything.

As part of that development program, ideology is also a strong believer in giving back to its community and society at large, in whatever way we can, as our internal corporate social responsibility mandate, which one would expect from all members of industry. This is demonstrated in the multitude of projects and support that ideology provides to social responsibility projects and charitable initiatives, some of which are detailed in our blog, such as Ideology Sponsors Miss Earth SA contestant, Ideology gets down and dirty assisting in Miss Earth SA schools initiative and Ideology helps with the Nissan Reach for a Dream GT-R track day.