She started Adtherapy in 2007, to help marketers and agencies optimise the quality of their collective output, through improved skills, pricing, structure, processes, strategic thinking, and relationships.
The mantra of the business, "better skills, better relationships, better results" drives the product and service offering. The business is part consulting, part training. The consulting aspect focuses on any aspect of the structure or relationship that is getting in the way of developing the best quality output (be it creative, media, production). Through Adtherapy's tried and tested processes involving strategic conversations with key stakeholders, she has successfully unlocked growth and performance in both corporate and agency teams.
The training area includes classroom sessions as well as coaching and mentoring, and focuses on upskilling broad marketing competencies with the Business Marketing Academy (over 100 modules by best in class practitioners and academics) that are customised to create in-house academies for corporate marketing teams, and the more focused Creative Fitness Programe, that helps marketers understand the inputs and methodologies to get great creativity from their partnership with their agencies.
Adtherapy also recently partnered with SoloUnion as an extension of the mission to rid the world of bad advertising, by offering strategic creative platforms to marketers and agencies. The model works by handing over a big idea platform for agencies or marketers to implement.
Gillian lectured Integrated Marketing Communications for the School of Management Studies at the University of Cape Town for ten years and is now a guest lecturer for UCT, UCT's international school, the Stellenbosch Design and Photography Academy, AAA and other educational institutions that focus on marketing and advertising. She has developed and run numerous online programmes, including Get Smarter.
She is a public speaker on various aspects of marketing and advertising, client-agency relationships, creativity, integrated communication and reputational risk.
Contact Gillian on tel +27 (0)21 761 2812 or email az.oc.yparehtda@naillig, read her blog at http://adtherapy.blogspot.com, connect on LinkedIn or Facebook and follow her on Twitter at @grightford.