"Marketing is something you build for the long term and you have a responsibility to hand it over to the next person, in a better place than what you found it," says Vaughan Croeser, vice president, marketing: The South African Breweries (AB InBev).
This formed part of his keynote address Not another Marketing Pep Talk; The Real Playbook for turning creative bravery into business results, at this year's Nedbank IMC.
Croeser gave three learnings from his years at SAB.
- Ambition
He says, as marketers, we need to be ambitious and think bigger than the brief.
- To fall in love with creativity
To achieve this, we need to develop creative processes and foster an environment that encourages creativity to flourish. (He also talks about loving where you work. If not, he says, resign.)
- Team culture
How to cultivate and nurture a culture where people can show up as their best selves and for their customers.
He then demonstrated how these work through the results from campaigns by SAB.
Proving his earlier point on marketing being long-term and that marketers need to be responsible, is the SAB Corona Moletele Lime Farm project.
"Limes are an important part of the Corona serving ritual, but South Africa did not have enough limes. Now, through the Moletele Lime Farm, we not only have enough, but it also produces 70% of the country's limes.
"The idea for the project came about in 2018 already. Now we are seeing the yields, demonstrating the long-term nature of marketing.
"I love that marketing can set up new value chains, that the solution to a marketing problem can do this," he says.
The #NedbankIMC Marketing is Business conference took place on Thursday, 18 September 2025 at Mosaiek Teatro, Johannesburg. Bizcommunity was proud to be a media partner for the stellar lineup of international and local experts who shared their knowledge with 3,000 delegates who attended virtually and in person. Bizcommunity Managing editor Danette Breitenbach was on the ground to interview some of the speakers who included Charl Bassil, CBO, BBC; Bryony Rose, YEXT; Vaughan Croeser, VP Marketing, ABinBEV; Ryan Sauer, CEO Redwood Analytics; Stacy Jane Saggers, Kantar Insights Division; Melusi Mhulngu CEO, We are Bizarre; and others speaking on marketing trends from from data dashboards, to how culture drives revenue growth, how 42% of the world's youth will be in Africa by 2030, how Africa can get a competitive advantage with AI, data and tech and creative leadership.
