ABSA  How does a corporate vision translate into goals, strategy & structure? Freedthinkers has facilitated a number of processes that interlace culture & brand. | Accelerate Cape Town  Art the request of Accelerate Cape Town ( a consortium of Cape Town Business), Freedthinkers facilitated “Vision 2030” for Cape Town, undertaking stakeholder engagements & synthesizing them into the vision & goals that are now being cascaded into strategies and actions | African Heritage  Our African Heritage, known as nherit, clusters all African World Heritage sites. It s a Freedthinkers initiative & a work in progress, supported by UNESCO & the MTN Foundation. See www.nherit.com | Ask Afrika  How does one of the most successful home-grown research companies spread its wings? Through stakeholder engagements & Turbine processes, Freedthinkers is facilitating a comprehensive way forward. |
BBC Worldwide  Ethnographics give BBC Worldwide (& advertisers) valuable insights to their South African audience, while subsequent Freedthinkers think-tanks are guiding future programming & promotions. | Business Day  Changing a format that has worked well can be traumatic and sometimes dangerous. By coming to Freedthinkers for consumer research, Business Day reduced the trauma & eliminated the danger. | Cash Crusaders  Consumer Research led to facilitating vision & values, developing brand & marketing strategies, reconstituting Cash Crusaders from the inside out. | Consumer Assist  Debt counseling is becoming a significant business – and a platform for other services. We facilitated a process that gave Consumer Assist a powerful five-year vision and a way to achieve it. |
Discovery Health  A key value of Discovery Health is innovation – yet employees are too busy doing. Freedthinkers collaborated in developing a program that stimulates & rewards innovation. Fresh minds are spotted & fresh ideas are being implemented. | DSTV  Freedthinkers undertakes a number of research processes that range from how to develop niche added value offerings, to understanding the consumer mindset in a time of increased competition & constrained finances. | Indalo Yethu  Following stakeholder engagements for what was Department of Environment & Tourism, Freedthinkers developed Indalo Yethu – the national environmental brand, of which Mike Freedman is now a trustee & strategic advisor. Indalo Yethu is now turning some of the most neglected towns around South Africa into eco-towns. | JLP  How does a successful video production house move to the next level? Following a Turbine process, JLP re-created themselves and in the economically fraught last year, grew by over 25%. |
KFC  How do South African families interact around food? Freedthinkers hosted KFC in a deep exploration that looked at the modern family & how KFC could appeal on emotional & rational levels. | Mindcor  Recruiting top talent needs a brand that breathes class. Freedthinkers undertook a brand audit, leading to Turbine sessions that have sparked the reconception of the Mindcor brand. | MTN  Freedthinkers works with MTN on the inside & outside. Inside: how units within MTN can flex their collaborative, co-creative muscles to drive innovation. Outside: how customers & prime prospects view specific MTN offerings | Nestle  Freedthinkers work with Nestlé South Africa & Switzerland on a variety of projects that range from communication checks to new product development. We take the insights from research to Turbine processes that explore opportunities. |
Ornico  Ornico is an independent provider of media information and brand intelligence. They approached Freedthinkers to facilitate their next round of innovation. As a result, four new services are being launched during 2011. | POCit  A new way to pay & receive money on your cell-phone, the market for POCit has been extensively researched by Freedthinkers who also guided the marketing strategy. See www.pocit.com | Rodale  Research into Men’s Health & stakeholders engagements to understand the best way to launch Women’s Health. | SA Government  Research & New Opportunities around integrating formal & informal economies, with a focus on peri-urban towns. Research, Brand Architecture & Marketing Strategies for environmental sustainability. Research & Communication Strategy around future Energy Mix. |
SANBI  The South African National Biodiversity Institute and Department of Environmental Affairs need to make a compelling case for biodiversity. Freedthinkers gathered insights that fed into a Turbine Process, resulting in how Biodiversity will help solve some of South Africa’s biggest challenges. | Sandton Central  Freedthinkers conducted stakeholder engagements for the Business and Community Improvement Districts of Sandton that revealed poor understanding of where Sandton begun and ended. It also showed that while Sandton was highly regarded as a business and a shopping hub, ‘soul’ was lacking. This led to us renaming the area Sandton Central and devising a strategy around energy, accessible culture and care, with 100, 300 and 1000 day plans. | Stellenbosch Wine Routes  We facilitated conversations around immediate actions & medium-term strategy. Stellenbosch Wine Routes have members that range from conservative to adventurous – we needed to find powerful consensus. | Sun International  How can table games regain their former lustre? Through a succession of Turbine Processes, we assisted Sun International in generating improvements & innovations for each of their Casinos across Southern Africa. Over 120 ideas were generated, from marginal improvements to radical ones. A selection are being implemented & piloted. |
Sunday Times  In a rapidly changing media landscape, how can South Africa’s largest newspaper build on its strengths. Through a series of Turbine processes, Freedthinkers has helped Sunday Times define its vision, purpose, strengths, challenges & opportunities. | The Futures Compnay  London based The Futures Company are conducting an international investigation into health, wellness & nutrition. Freedthinkers undertook the South African part with deep ethnographic immersions, that took us from Orange Farm to a remote fishing village in the Eastern Cape. The insights, together with video footage & photographic essays, is hailed as a new standard for the global project. | TJDR  In the words of its then Chairman, Freedthinkers helped The Jupiter Drawing Room “continue its journey from a high performance to a sustainable and soulful high purpose driven organization that performs with our people at the centre” | Unesco  With support from UNESCO we are building a brand that embraces all African World Heritage Sites. See www.nherit.com - another work in progress. |
Unilever  Unilever is amongst the most socially responsible international companies & Freedthinkers was tasked to make constructive critiques around their CSI & Sustainability strategies. | Virgin  We gave Virgin International an in-depth view of South African corporate responsibility practices, which led to a Turbine process that engaged all Virgin South Africa businesses to create a common, interactive social responsibility programme. | Webber Wentzel  Freedthinkers conducted stakeholder engagements & an independent brand audit, leading to rethinking the interaction between Webber Wentzel culture, brand & marketing. | |