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SA’s leading marketing consultancy, Yellowwood Future Architects, has been helping its clients drive sustainable top-line growth since its establishment in 1997. Over the years, the business has deepened its specialist strategy capabilities and grown its offering, evolving into a company that bridges the divide between business and brand.
In achieving its vision to be globally renowned as leaders in strategic marketing, Yellowwood changed its organisational structure in response to what it identified organisations and brands need. Today the business is structured to deliver on this vision through the collaborative power of its four strategic disciplines: marketing-led core strategy, communication strategy, data strategy and the specialist youth strategy divisions.
Its marketing-led core strategy discipline uses Yellowwood’s trademarked “Unconventional Wisdom” to connect the dots and unearth new meaning to help its clients drive sustainable growth.
The communication strategy division leverages the link to the TBWA Group, using data, insight and in-culture context to drive people-first creative and communications excellence for disruptive business growth. Data strategy develops an insightful use of information and new forms of data as tools to unlock strategic insights that enable recommendations for sustainable business growth.
Youth strategy is the specialist thought leadership focus on young people to future-proof brands and businesses by “developing strategies that are informed and shaped by the youth to define opportunities for growth now and in the future”, says MD Refilwe Maluleke.
This combination of analysis, insight and strategy comes with an expertise that allows the consultancy to solve challenges with a disciplined, rigorous but pragmatic process, balanced with insight, creative and disruptive thinking.
Yellowwood’s evolution is reflected not only in its clients and their work, but also in the leadership at the helm. “We’re the only brand consultancy with an all-woman leadership team, all under 40,” says Maluleke.
“The transformation of the leadership team has not only delivered commercial results, with 2021 showing 46% revenue growth from 2020 and 30% revenue growth from 2019, but it also resulted in Yellowwood being recognised as the most innovative brand consultancy in Africa by MEA Markets Magazine.”
Hlengiwe Mkhize, finance manager (left), Refilwe Maluleke, MD and Ntombiza masala Hlophe, strategy director
CASE STUDY
In the years between 2017 and 2019, Yellowwood conducted a brand repositioning and architecture project for Altron, a 50-year-old business that had been a holding entity for a number of independent subsidiaries.
Its new business strategy required that the group of companies operate more seamlessly as a single entity with a compelling overarching position and a purpose-fit renewed architecture model that enabled the subsidiaries to deliver against a “One Altron” corporate strategy.
The first phase of the project involved research to identify gaps and opportunities to inform the strategy.
The second phase involved developing a differentiated and compelling brand positioning, an architecture route and a naming convention. The third phase involved determining the who, what, where and when the brand communicates. The final phase involved developing and socialising a brand-led story for the company ’s people and culture.
The project demonstrated Yellowwood’s ability to communicate meaningfully with leadership at the crucial stage of delivering a new business strategy geared to rejuvenating growth.
The challenge was transforming Altron from a holding company with multiple customer-facing brands that were run as independent businesses — some of which were complex legal partnerships with external companies — to a monolithic brand, says Yellowwood MD Refilwe Maluleke.
It also demonstrated Yellowwood’s ability to conduct robust analyses to enable objective and consistent decision making to drive the business strategy; develop and shape key insights that help galvanise the entire business behind the new brand and business strategy; and transform the structure of the organisation to deliver maximum impact as a strong brand that shows up and behaves as a single entity.
“Working with Yellowwood led to high-quality outputs that not only have internal buy-in but are also business-focused and practical. The positive feedback from across the businesses, particularly those that were initially averse to the process, is proof of its abilities,” says Zipporah Maubane, group executive for marketing at Altron.
Yellowwood
2021 Financial Mail AdFocus Profile
SA’s leading marketing consultancy, Yellowwood Future Architects, has been helping its clients drive sustainable top-line growth since its establishment in 1997. Over the years, the business has deepened its specialist strategy capabilities and grown its offering, evolving into a company that bridges the divide between business and brand.
In achieving its vision to be globally renowned as leaders in strategic marketing, Yellowwood changed its organisational structure in response to what it identified organisations and brands need. Today the business is structured to deliver on this vision through the collaborative power of its four strategic disciplines: marketing-led core strategy, communication strategy, data strategy and the specialist youth strategy divisions.
Its marketing-led core strategy discipline uses Yellowwood’s trademarked “Unconventional Wisdom” to connect the dots and unearth new meaning to help its clients drive sustainable growth.
The communication strategy division leverages the link to the TBWA Group, using data, insight and in-culture context to drive people-first creative and communications excellence for disruptive business growth. Data strategy develops an insightful use of information and new forms of data as tools to unlock strategic insights that enable recommendations for sustainable business growth.
Youth strategy is the specialist thought leadership focus on young people to future-proof brands and businesses by “developing strategies that are informed and shaped by the youth to define opportunities for growth now and in the future”, says MD Refilwe Maluleke.
This combination of analysis, insight and strategy comes with an expertise that allows the consultancy to solve challenges with a disciplined, rigorous but pragmatic process, balanced with insight, creative and disruptive thinking.
Yellowwood’s evolution is reflected not only in its clients and their work, but also in the leadership at the helm. “We’re the only brand consultancy with an all-woman leadership team, all under 40,” says Maluleke.
“The transformation of the leadership team has not only delivered commercial results, with 2021 showing 46% revenue growth from 2020 and 30% revenue growth from 2019, but it also resulted in Yellowwood being recognised as the most innovative brand consultancy in Africa by MEA Markets Magazine.”
CASE STUDY
In the years between 2017 and 2019, Yellowwood conducted a brand repositioning and architecture project for Altron, a 50-year-old business that had been a holding entity for a number of independent subsidiaries.
Its new business strategy required that the group of companies operate more seamlessly as a single entity with a compelling overarching position and a purpose-fit renewed architecture model that enabled the subsidiaries to deliver against a “One Altron” corporate strategy.
The first phase of the project involved research to identify gaps and opportunities to inform the strategy.
The second phase involved developing a differentiated and compelling brand positioning, an architecture route and a naming convention. The third phase involved determining the who, what, where and when the brand communicates. The final phase involved developing and socialising a brand-led story for the company ’s people and culture.
The project demonstrated Yellowwood’s ability to communicate meaningfully with leadership at the crucial stage of delivering a new business strategy geared to rejuvenating growth.
The challenge was transforming Altron from a holding company with multiple customer-facing brands that were run as independent businesses — some of which were complex legal partnerships with external companies — to a monolithic brand, says Yellowwood MD Refilwe Maluleke.
It also demonstrated Yellowwood’s ability to conduct robust analyses to enable objective and consistent decision making to drive the business strategy; develop and shape key insights that help galvanise the entire business behind the new brand and business strategy; and transform the structure of the organisation to deliver maximum impact as a strong brand that shows up and behaves as a single entity.
“Working with Yellowwood led to high-quality outputs that not only have internal buy-in but are also business-focused and practical. The positive feedback from across the businesses, particularly those that were initially averse to the process, is proof of its abilities,” says Zipporah Maubane, group executive for marketing at Altron.