On 29 March the BCom Honours (Marketing Management) students were “wowed” with a presentation by Andreas Smit, Senior Executive of Business Development at Tradeway Promotions. Smit holds a BCom Hons (Marketing) from the University of Stellenbosch and is currently completing his MBA. He has more than a decade’s experience as a brand manager, overseeing several brands, mostly in the alcoholic beverage industry.

Smit, who is passionate about keeping customer service and keeping customers happy, used his passion as the foundation of his super hero-themed talk: ‘The consumer needs a hero’.

He spoke to the students about “understanding the South African consumers and how they engage with brands through a phygital (combination of physical and digital) lens”. He further explained the importance of a marketing practitioner’s relationship with his or her agency, from a business-to-business (B2B) perspective.

Dr Michelle  van der Merwe, the Marketing of Services lecturer, and the students were pleased to hear that the University of Pretoria’s Marketing Management honours alumni employed at Tradeway Promotions have made a positive impact on the company. The audience was also excited to learn that Tradeway Promotions is keen to appoint more students from the apprentice-style BCom Honours (Marketing Management) programme.

Tradeway Promotions is a technology and data driven consumer connection agency and offers a variety of services related to activations and events, digital, and field services.

Smit concluded the evening with this key comment: “I would like to leave the class with one primary message and that is that they are the future heroes of their consumers and customers. They are accountable to their consumers for clear, honest and uplifting communication.”