INFLUENCE ARCHITECT
Lorraine Maisel-Forbes, brand strategist and creative consultant
Forty years in the industry. Four industry awards. One person on the call.
Johannesburg · Since 2005
I have spent forty years in South African fashion, beauty and retail. Styling, buying, communications, and since 2005 running an agency of my own from Johannesburg.
What I do now is narrower and, I think, more useful. I advise brands directly. The consulting work runs from a single strategic session to a retained advisory relationship, and the agency is still here for the campaigns that need a team behind them.
Two ways to work with me
One is me, advising. The other is an agency with a team behind it. Some brands use both, and plenty use one for years without ever needing the other.
Forty years, and four industry awards
Longevity in this industry is not a vanity metric. It is the reason an editor returns the call and a creator answers on a Sunday. The recognition below came from the South African and pan-African communications industry, not from us.
- 2021
PRISM Awards 2021 — Bronze, Influencer Management
- 2021/22
South Africa Prestige Awards 2021/22 — PR Agency of the Year
- 2020/21
South Africa Prestige Awards 2020/21 — PR Agency of the Year
- 2019
African Excellence Awards 2019 — Most Innovative Fashion Brand Communications Agency, South Africa
The 2021 PRISM Bronze matters more than the rest, because it was awarded for influencer management specifically. That is the part of this business most agencies still treat as a booking exercise.
Our Founder
"We like to get under the skin of the client and effectively carve and create campaigns that are aligned to the brand and suited to the market."
Lorraine Maisel-Forbes founded Styling Concepts in 2005 and brings more than forty years in fashion, beauty and lifestyle to it. She reviews every brief that comes through the studio, and on new business she takes the first call herself.
A creator network of 15,000, and the judgement to use it properly
The network runs from nano creators with a thousand followers to national names above a million. Size is the least interesting thing about it. What makes it worth having is that we have worked with these people, know which of them deliver on a deadline, and know which have already posted for your competitor this quarter.
Selection starts with your customer, not with the creator list. We define who needs reaching, then filter on audience demographics, genuine engagement, category credibility, brand safety and existing partnerships. Then we look at the content itself, which is the step most plans skip.
How the work runs
The person who takes the brief stays on the brief
Nobody is handed down to a junior account executive the week after the pitch. On consulting work there is no account team at all — there is me.
A commercial objective, not a coverage target
Column centimetres are easy to generate and mean very little on their own. We agree at the start what the work is supposed to move, and we report against that.
An honest read, including when the answer is no
If an event is the wrong instrument for your launch, I will say so and tell you what would work better for the same money. Forty years of accumulated goodwill in this industry is worth considerably more to me than one badly spent retainer.
Who I work with
Named work is the only proof that survives scrutiny, so here is some of it: H&M, L'Oréal, Maybelline New York, Garnier, Kérastase, The North Face, Tommy Hilfiger, G-Star Raw, Superdry, Converse, Lee, Wrangler, Dickies, Pringle of Scotland, Alpha Industries, Pandora, Fossil, Red Bull, Castle Lite and TotalSports, among more than thirty brands. Most arrived through a referral from someone we had worked with elsewhere, which is the only new business channel I have ever relied on.
International beauty houses launching into South Africa. Home-grown fashion labels preparing for retail expansion. Retail groups, lifestyle brands, and founders who have built something good and are tired of being the best-kept secret in their category.
Brands come to me at three moments in particular: before committing significant spend, when a campaign is underperforming and the internal team is too close to see why, and when there is no senior marketing person in the business and the founder is making these calls alone.
I am equally clear about where I am not the right fit. I do not run paid media, I am not a performance marketing agency, and I do not take briefs where the objective is volume of coverage rather than effect. There are people who will service those briefs well, and I would rather name one than take work I cannot be proud of.
Start a conversation
Tell me what you are launching, repositioning or scaling, and when. You will get a straight read on what you are working with and what it would take. No pitch theatre, and no retainer conversation until it is warranted.
info@stylingconcepts.co.za