South Africa, Aug. 24 -- That made me think about what South African advertising has been teaching us all along. In South Ahh, it's not unusual for a single brief to ask you to think across different cultures, languages and economic realities at the same time.

The challenge isn't simply that the country is diverse. It's that the same piece of communication often has to resonate across that diversity. You're rarely speaking to one audience with one shared experience because the country is simply too layered for that.

An idea that works in one context won't necessarily work in another. You learn very quickly that solving a communication problem isn't just about finding a clever line. It's about understanding people whose lives, references...