You don’t stumble into advertising. You either claw your way in or talk your way through the door. Sometimes both. And once you’re in, you learn quickly.
Trust yourself
That’s what came through in Season 2 of the Daily Maverick Marketing Masterclass, hosted by eatbigfish’s David Blyth and Khaya Dlanga. The new episode titled: Building a career in marketing was aimed at helping those who are just putting their foot through the door to thrive.
At the centre: three industry powerhouses—Sharon Keith, Suhana Gordhan, and Dlanga himself—each with a backstory that defies the clean lines of a LinkedIn bio.
“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
That’s how Keith opened. A veteran marketer with brands like Coca-Cola and Unilever under her belt. What she has figured out, though, is people.
“I’ve always been fascinated by human behaviour and why people do what they do,” she said. But getting into the industry? That was chaos. “When I graduated, it was crickets. Or rejection letters saying I had no experience.”
So she did what no career coach (including herself) would advise in the modern world: she walked into Unilever, straight into HR, and talked her way into an interview. Seven interviews later, she was in. “Through the back door,” she grinned. “Trust yourself. Knock on every door. And then knock again. Sometimes no is the first step to yes.”
But entering the corporate world as a young woman was a rude awakening. “No one prepares you for what it’s like. There were things that made me question whether I even wanted to stay.” The shock shaped her—but so did the relationships she built. The art of managing people, reading rooms, standing firm. It laid the groundwork for the leader she would become.
Boys club
When Gordhan entered the industry as a wide-eyed creative, she quickly learned that talent wasn’t enough especially when you didn’t fit the mould. While working on a car account, someone told her she didn’t belong there. "You should be working on tampon ads," they said.
It was a moment that stung and stayed.
Advertising wasn’t her original plan. Gordhan wanted to perform, to move people. Her parents, more supportive than most, encouraged her to pursue drama and English. But by her honours year, the weight of reality set in. “I started worrying about how I’d make a living. I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents.”
Her brother mentioned the world of advertising. She followed him into a postgrad at AAA and landed an internship at Ogilvy in the early 2000s. Hustled her way into a job—literally begged to be hired at the staff party. It worked.
“Ogilvy was a university,” she said. “But it was also a boys’ locker room. I was one of the few women of colour."
After years of hard work she became the chairperson of the Loeries, she used the platform to create what she’d never had: connection. Support. Visibility. Out of this grew Open Chair, a space for women in the industry to gather, reflect, and push back.
Because for Gordhan, talent isn’t enough. “We need people who are resilient. Who won’t give up. Who bring a fresh lens and a hunger to learn.”
Advertising folklore
Dlanga’s story is practically folklore in the industry by now. But that doesn’t make it any less moving. He had to drop out of AAA because it was too expensive.
“I decided I would apply for a job at one of the top agencies in Cape Town,” he said. “No degree. No connections. Just a CV I made sure would stand out.”
That CV has become legendary. It included lines like:
“Some of my best friends are white.”
“I’m not a member of COSATU.”
“Experience? I used to write slogans like ‘Free Mandela’ on township walls. It was a very successful campaign, as you may have noticed.”
It was funny, bold, and impossible to ignore. He got the job.
Today, he’s one of the country’s most respected creatives, but he hasn’t forgotten the journey. Or the fact that being human still matters more than ever, especially in the age of AI.
“AI will be average,” he said. “It won’t have our context, our nuance, our culture.
Adds Keith: "It won’t have the memory of your mom’s red stoep polish. It can’t replace that.”
Suhana echoed them: “It’s not an enemy, it’s an ally. But it doesn’t have your lived experience. You can’t feed it every heartbreak and every joy you’ve lived.”
What makes good work?
The panel didn’t sugarcoat anything. They spoke of curveballs, of having your creativity ripped apart in review meetings, of the constant reinvention the industry demands.
But they also offered good advice:
Be a sponge. Learn from everyone. Especially those who don’t look or think like you.
Get out of your bubble. Keith reminded us: “You are not the target market.” Go wash clothes with your consumer. Cook with them. Shop with them. Observe without judgement.
Don’t patronise. Just because someone lives in a township doesn’t mean they can’t afford luxury. Human behaviour is layered. Sometimes people do things out of character, like cutting their hair after a breakup. That’s what you need to understand.
Have fun. Ghordan said it best: “When the work excites you, it usually excites others too.”
So what now?
The takeaway from this masterclass wasn’t just that marketing needs more insight. It’s that it needs more humanity.
In a world where AI writes decent copy, being human is the only real advantage we have left. The question is: will we remember to use it?
Because at the end of the day, the work that moves people—the kind that sticks, shifts, sells—still comes from people who feel.
And that can’t be automated.
