Armed with the war cry "Imagination is everything. It's the preview to life's forthcoming attractions," courtesy of Albert Einstein, Cumming has focused on maintaining a happy and healthy company which he says is one that retains both its clients and its staff. Responsible for new business, his role is also to future-safe the agency which he does by plotting it on a course that ensures it will remain relevant and compelling five years from now.
Comments Cumming about that course, "Digital is here. It's been here for some time. It's everywhere, it's all around us. Let's stop talking, tweeting and blogging about the subject and start executing strategic, world-class, highly effective brand communication through the multitude of mediums we have at our disposal. Although evolved, the basic principles of marketing remain. There will always be a need for brave, creative ideas that move people. Whether these ideas live on the Internet or on the shelf in the supermarket aisle is less important than the brilliance of the idea itself."
With some 15 years experience in the field at some of the country's most respected names in the business, Cumming is no stranger to success. After a four year stint abroad, he started as an account manager with BesterBurke D'Arcy in Johannesburg before moving across to PentaMark BBDO as an account manager on Daimler Chrysler.
Ogilvy then convinced him to join the team on the Volkswagen account in Cape Town as an account director in the Spring of 2003 and would stay there until branching out to open his own You There! In the Autumn of 2007. He was lured back into employment by Lowe Bull with an offer of business unit director. He got to flex his natural entrepreneurial muscle again a year later at the Habari Group (now called called Machine) when he co-founded Big Wednesday, an integrated below-the-line agency, securing the Motorola account in the process. He went on to fulfill the role of business director and managing director here before joining Leftfield as business development director in 2011.
