CREATIVITY & HUMANITY

With a population of 900 million which accounts for 25% of the world’s population, an average per capita income of roughly $1 per day, Africa remains the poorest region in the world.Between 1981 to date, the number of people in the continent living in poverty has nearly doubled; leaving the average African poorer today than he was 2 decades ago, life expectancy in some African countries has fallen to 30 years, HIV-AIDS having killed one of every seven children before the age of 5.

The Statistics look horrendous, and the biggest question would be “Can Africa ever get out of this rot, will her countries ever live in the predictions of becoming attractive economies by 2020?”

Even worse is the reaction from local institutions especially government that should be responsible for alleviating these problems.

Corporate social responsibility has been inherited by corporate organizations, who themselves use it as a catchall phrase to earn public reputation without any commitment to rid our society of the scourge.

However as it appears that the total disregard might create for all stakeholders an uncomfortable environment to thrive in, some companies are beginning to embrace innovative ways within their core business activities of making better the current situation.

Most interesting is how companies such as NedBank have taken this beyond the traditional cause-related initiative to using new and unique platforms that delivers on Triple bottom line.

Nedbank, a South African Bank wanted to show that they were not just about profit and though they are a financial institution, their proposition was more deeper with a commitment to making a difference in the life of the people.

To reinforce what they’d always stood for “Make things happen” Nedbank didn’t just run a commercial to talk about what they did for their communities, rather they came up with an idea to create the first solar powered billboard that was designed to convert the heat of the African sun to electricity for a school’s kitchen that fed 1100 pupils in a rural South African neighborhood.

It was such meaningful activity that deepened and expanded their scale of operations beyond just providing the functional, and positioned the Nedbank brand as symbol of hope.

As communication partners, the soul of true and meaningful creativity should be in its humane interpretation; it’s the search for opportunities within the seemingly unpleasant everyday harshness that we can leverage not with the aim of selling products or winning awards but to making lives better.

It is therefore essential that as brand builders we should not just assume that our jobs end at increasing brand awareness or helping client optimize advertising budgets, but a noble calling of investing our creativity in the most sustainable and significant way.