David is a calculated risk taker, maybe even a little crazy when challenged. Like the time he kayaked off a big waterfall. Yet, he can also be surprisingly gentle when suggesting that something needs to change.
David leads Wild Pursuit and our clients’ digital marketing strategies.
When I was younger, I had an option to join a big advertising agency, but chose not to because I preferred marketing, as it felt more grounded.
I chose to work for Wild Pursuit, as it is a marketing led agency. I am going to try and explain the deep marketing way in which David drives Wild Pursuit.
Let’s begin with David’s mind …
A “marketing” way of thinking
From when he delivered newspapers as a boy, to studying an Honours degree in Marketing, and working for international industrial companies, David thinks about the world in marketing terms.
- What is that restaurant sign not saying?
- That’s a clever Call-To-Action
- This design element makes you want to read more
His swipe file is stacked with a few hundred examples he’s been building over the years. Here are a few.
Thinking about what makes people buy
As a young marketer, David worked in traditional marketing.
Further in his career, he worked on industrial market intelligence projects for blue-chip companies, such as Barloworld and Atlas Copco. This is when he began to flex his analytical and data building skills and gained great insight into buyer behaviour.
David learned to extrapolate insights that led to strategy and tactical manoeuvres. (These in-depth market research and strategy projects proved so valuable that, eight years on, the companies still ask him to consult on these projects.)
Lean Six Sigma Certified – Green Belt
David honed his analytical skills when he qualified, alongside industrial engineers, to do a Lean Six Sigma course. Here, he learned to optimise work processes and systems.
This means that David understands how processes work together to give an outcome, and how math and data science fit together in a marketing system.
Strategic Thinking
A pattern brain and almost photographic visual memory mean that David can envisage behavioural flows and predict and evaluate future possibilities.
Starting Wild Pursuit
David and his business partner, Pierre, started the online marketing agency, Wild Pursuit, in 2015.
Our way is both left brained and right brained
- Wild is the wild creative ideas, right side that has unlimited thinking and can envisage campaigns that appeal to people.
- Pursuit refers to the left brain. This logical thinking side is highly analytical and builds giant machinery with data, for advert and website building
All this comes together like a giant Meccano machine – from salvaged parts, of course, because we like to build things from available resources.
We live for marketing challenges
As a Scout, David enjoyed meeting challenges and proved to be a good leader, winning many accolades and eventually becoming a Springbok Scout.
It’s a good thing that David learned to relish challenges, as many of our clients ask us to help them with problems. David actually enjoys applying his mind to a marketing problem and solving it, so that companies achieve the results they need to grow.
What challenges does your company face?
Tell us about your challenges. book a 30-minute call with us.
Sharpening skills
Traditional marketing is the core, but digital marketing combines the full force of David’s skill set. David keeps these skills finely honed.
He regularly sharpens his skills by attending international conferences and reading books by top thinkers. Then he applies what he’s learned.
Chief Marketing Skills:
1. Digital marketing strategy
Not many people understand how digital elements behave together, within the context of a company’s marketing strategy, like David does. He’s a brilliant digital marketer.
He whizzed through the Digital Marketing Aptitude Test.
2. Digital ads practitioner
How does he do it? His digital ads beat benchmark averages between 2 and 7 times.
3. Sales techniques
David mastered next-level sales techniques from leading sales trainers. He takes sales techniques and applies them to marketing copy, to get people to take a planned action.
4. Persuasive Copywriting
David has an exceptional ability to reframe people. He continually studies behavioural science. He can design a story arc like a rollercoaster ride.
Pages of strategy preparation precede one written page, which is worded so simply that it takes minimal cognitive effort to lead to the planned action.
(As I write this, I know it will require a few revisions before it’s ready to go, but David will be willing to help.)
5. Business leader
Running a successful business with Pierre, means David has learnt truckloads about:
- Infusing a happy company culture
- People management and training
- Driving high quality standards
- Calculating the costs of business results
- Pushing past exhaustion and sleepless nights
- Wearing multiple hats
He understands the difficulties that come with growing a business.
6. Red Tape Cutter
David cuts through corporate red tape better than anyone else I know. He gets stuff happening.
7. A Super Dad
Family comes first. David and his wife, Michelle, have two children and two cats that like to jump up and peer through the office window during meetings.
8. Thought leader
He is an original thinker. The magic comes from his strategic view of a company, that gets pulled into a strategic marketing framework, spiced with creativity and blended to produce the desired result.
9. Clients are almost like family
Almost but not quite, David considers the impact on his client’s lives and businesses, much like he cares for his own family.
He cares about the effects our marketing has on business and society. I’ve seen him delay price increases to help struggling clients, or give extra time to a special project. He treats clients as true business partners.
Achievements
Driving growth for companies that partner with us is what gets us up in the morning.
First prize always goes to driving return on marketing spend for our clients. Along the way, David has led some awesome projects. Here are just a few:
- Created ROI: For SAA Museum, delivered an ROI of 10.4 x the marketing cost. See how we repositioned the museum and drove the ROI here
- Built a giant website in 8 difficult weeks: Our team rebuilt the Hisense South Africa website in 2020, during the first 2 months of the initial Covid shutdown – in budget and on time.
- Designated MASA Marketing Practitioner – David joined the prestigious Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA), submitted an extensive portfolio and was designated a Marketing Practitioner (MPSA).
- Video ad process: Wild Pursuit developed a clever system for producing adaptable, high quality video ads with less cost. See Video Marketing case study here
- AEG APAC Award: The Marketing Manager of AEG South Africa won an AEG APAC Award for YouTube Ads which we delivered for them and became their APAC best practice.
- Developed the “Hatfield model” for customer success: At our agency, clients speak directly to the person who does the work, so they understand the nuances within a company and shortcut the “broken telephone”.
You’ll find snippets from clients’ success stories sprinkled throughout our website.
To Wrap Up
David takes things he’s learned to a deep level of understanding and applies them in an easy-to-understand way – always with the end goal in sight. (Which are the actions he wants the end user to take.)
I think it’s this insight, combined with high technical ability and thoughtful experience that makes David an exception in the advertising world.
Together, David and Pierre created a company that is as much about marketing as it is about advertising. This grounds creative work and keeps it focused on what’s important.
Let us help you create projects you can be proud of
You’ll love working with Wild Pursuit.
See David Peake on LinkedIn here.