By Inamangwe Mtumtum, Senior Built-in Strategist at Boomtown
There’s a unusual efficiency constructed into technique.
We stroll into boardrooms, undertaking slide decks onto screens, clear our throats and communicate within the language of confidence: “The shopper needs … the market is shifting … the chance is obvious … the model should. We’re paid to make ambiguity sound elegant; to show collective panic into business pillars. To have a look at a rustic that appears like it’s being held collectively by debit orders, WhatsApp prayers and mid-month calculations and in some way produce a seamless manner ahead.
However what occurs when actuality refuses to be simplified?
Proper now, South Africans will not be slightly below strain however reside inside a matrix of overlapping crises. The official unemployment charge rose to 32.7% within the first quarter of this 12 months, with youth unemployment at an alarming 45.8%. This interprets to nearly one in two younger folks searching for work unable to search out employment.
In the meantime, the price of dwelling retains rising with the common family meals basket costing R5,452.09 in April 2026, up by R123.56 from the earlier month. On prime of monetary pressure, public establishments face intense scrutiny below the Madlanga Fee’s look into policing and systemic failures, whereas renewed parliamentary debates round presidential accountability preserve nationwide anxieties simmering.
Then there’s the extra insidious stress of synthetic intelligence threatening that your so-called invaluable talent set could be tomorrow’s automated effectivity saving.
We inform younger folks to construct careers in an economic system that may’t take in them. We count on staff to be glad about employment they’re frightened of shedding. And we bombard shoppers with conflicting cultural mandates: spend, save, heal, hustle, relaxation, glow, fitness center, complement, self-care, make investments, soft-life, hard-launch – and in some way nonetheless have cash left over for gas. No marvel ashwagandha (a herb in conventional Ayurvedic medication that helps the physique resist and adapt to emphasize) has grow to be a persona kind.
The buyer situation is the contradiction
Within the midst of all this, strategists are requested to know the patron, develop the model, unlock relevance and drive conversion. We’re requested to search out the elusive human reality that can compel somebody to spend just a little extra, swap just a little sooner or care just a little deeper.
At occasions, it feels absurd, even mildly offensive. As a result of the sincere, uncomfortable query we should ask ourselves is: How do you ask folks to purchase extra when life is already taking a lot?
That’s precisely the place the strategist’s imposter syndrome begins. It doesn’t stem from incompetence, however from the truth that the job calls for absolute certainty from a actuality that solely gives compounding stress. We’re anticipated to supply definitive solutions whereas the shoppers themselves are nonetheless desperately negotiating primary questions reminiscent of whether or not they may even afford the services or products: Can I justify shopping for this? Do I deserve this? Is that this accountable? Is that this pleasure, or is that this simply survival?
Contradiction is not a shopper perception. It’s the patron situation.
The normal strategist might traditionally disguise behind neat, tidy segmentations reminiscent of ‘The Aspirational Shopper’, ‘The Worth Seeker’ and ‘The Younger City Skilled’, amongst others. These labels really feel laughably skinny within the present atmosphere.
Right this moment’s shopper could be anxious about their monetary future and nonetheless purchase luxurious fragrance. They are often deeply mistrustful of establishments and nonetheless gamble on-line. They are often exhausted by capitalism and nonetheless deeply need a Stanley cup, a pilates membership, an IV drip and the curated gentle life aesthetic.
The expansion of playing and on-line sports activities betting particularly, is a working example. Whereas formal job alternatives proceed to shrink, South Africa’s betting income has grown fourfold since 2021. The native playing sector reported a staggering R1.5 trillion in whole quantities wagered in FY2024/25, with gross playing income reaching R74.5 billion. Betting has stopped being mere leisure. For a lot of, it has grow to be hope with odds connected – a small, high-stakes theatre the place folks can really feel like their lives would possibly essentially change by the ultimate whistle. That’s not irrational behaviour. It’s rational behaviour working inside an irrational economic system.
Transferring from empathy to model accountability
What defines our actual work now could be to not make manufacturers sound sure, however to make them extra sincere.
We should cease pretending shoppers are merely “resilient.” Resilience has grow to be the well mannered, company euphemism we use when structural programs have repeatedly failed folks. We should cease romanticising systemic wrestle into “hustle tradition.” Crucially, we can’t use empathy as a tone of voice whereas our underlying technique stays purely extractive.
Empathy at scale can’t simply imply writing softer advert copy. It has to imply implementing sharper model duty. Shoppers can immediately really feel the distinction between a model that genuinely understands their strain and a model that’s merely finding out it to gas a marketing campaign.
That is the place purchasers, businesses and strategists have to have way more uncomfortable conversations. We will’t preserve asking promoting to really feel culturally alive whereas concurrently ravenous it of the operational circumstances that make it significant.
The paradox is that whereas manufacturers are asking for emotional relevance, cultural breakthrough, natural loyalty and deep human connection, what they really present are compressed budgets, hyper-accelerated timelines, conservative approvals, generic CSI and risk-averse briefs.
We function below a flawed perception that tradition could be borrowed for a seasonal marketing campaign with out ever being invested in. We chase emotional relevance whereas refusing to take any emotional danger. Promoting can’t preserve shouting “we see you” whereas doing completely nothing to show it.
Embracing the mess
The way forward for technique won’t belong to those that sound essentially the most sure. It is going to belong to the individuals who can sit inside uncertainty with out flattening it.
The business wants strategists who can take a look at a slide deck and acknowledge that the patron is scared however nonetheless need issues; broke, however nonetheless expressive; indignant, however nonetheless hopeful; exhausted, however nonetheless reachable. However they’re solely reachable if we cease insulting them with oversimplified messaging.
Perhaps the strategist’s job is not to fabricate a false sense of certainty. Perhaps our job is solely to make higher sense of the mess; to assist manufacturers perceive that in unsure occasions, folks aren’t simply shopping for merchandise for the sake of proudly owning the merchandise. What they’re additionally shopping for is reduction from quick friction, proof of their arduous work, management over a small a part of their day, standing, escape and continuity. They’re shopping for a fleeting feeling that life has not fully cornered them.
Essentially the most sincere technique right this moment begins with admitting that we don’t have an ideal reply. As a substitute, we now have a duty to ask much better questions.
The buyer just isn’t a static target market on a PowerPoint slide. They’re any individual making an attempt to make hire, dodge debit orders, keep sane, look good, imagine in one thing, feed a household, survive the household WhatsApp group, keep away from the miserable information cycle, preserve their job – or discover one – and nonetheless retain sufficient inside softness to need one thing lovely.
So sure, being a strategist proper now appears like imposter syndrome. However possibly that discomfort just isn’t proof that we’re frauds however fairly proof that we’re lastly paying consideration.
