From tea boy to Ad man and now bag man

Sandstorm Kenya managing director Mark Stephenson. Photo/DIANA NGILA 

By JACKSON BIKO

Posted  Thursday, April 3  2014 at  16:56

In Summary

Mark Stephenson, MD, Sandstorm Kenya
Age: 45 years
Education: Loreto School, Edinburgh, UK
Career:
1987 – 1998 Cravens, Newcastle upon Tyne
Advertising Agency: Office Junior to Client Services Director
(Sabbatical in 1994 travelling in India, SE Asia, Australasia)
 1998 – 2003 The Leith Agency, Edinburgh
Advertising Agency: Group Account Director and Business Development Director
2003 – 2007 Stand Design, Glasgow
Design & Brand Consultancy: Founding Partner
2007 – present, Managing Director Sandstorm Kenya, Nairobi

 

Sandstorm started as a tent-making company. That was back in 2002. Mark joined his current partner in the business in 2007, fresh off the boat from the UK where he had been in advertising business for 20 years.

He wasn’t lured to Africa by the usual clichéd novelty but by the potential of the Sandstorm bag, a product he saw as authentic, fun and one that possessed promise in terms of the ideas he could infuse in it.

About 50 employees are behind the production of Sandstorm bags. Their workshop in Karen makes about 700 pieces every month, which mostly supplies their seven shops in Kenya and Tanzania.

Curiously, Mark reflects, Sandstorm isn’t a touristy product. It’s not even a luxury product, even though they aren’t exactly cheap. “Only the most interesting people will carry a Sandstorm bag,” he told me recently over lunch at Arttcafé, The Junction.

You have deplaned, waiting for your bag at the carousel. Do you always catch yourself keenly observing other people’s bags?

(Excitedly) Of course! But you know what? My Sandstorm bag is normally obviously the coolest. (Laughs). And it makes me proud if there isn’t any bag half as cool as my bag.

What does a bag say about someone, anyway?

Good one! (Long pause). Let’s put it in another way; only the most interesting people will carry a Sandstorm bag.

So someone carrying, say a Fendi bag, isn’t interesting enough?

That’s not it. You see, there is a sense of purpose that comes with carrying a Sandstorm bag. When you buy one of these bags, you are making an investment because they are not only durable but timeless.

You are buying into a confidence. Luxury brands are powerful, yes, but I always feel like there is a certain amount of insecurity that comes with having to make that point of possessing one.

How did this Sandstorm story start?

My dad was a CEO of a brewery in the UK. At 16, he got me an internship at an Advertising agency. I wasn’t very good at school; in fact I was spectacularly unacademic!

I haven’t passed any exams since I was 16 by the way. I failed my A-levels, re-sat them and failed again…

Is this a self-deprecating moment? 

No! I’m serious! My dad, as a favour, organised for me to get a job at this advertising agency as a tea-boy. In 10 years, I was a client service director. But I was still a big fish in a small pond.

At 25, I took a break, I wanted to travel, so the company gave me an interest-free loan and I went to South East Asia. I came back, worked for a while and then in 2003, together with a friend, we started our Ad agency in Scotland.

Two years after, we got this client, Sandstorm, a small account in Africa. I fell in love with the product and I told the owner, “Look, I want in.” He agreed. I came to Kenya in 2007 to see if I could live here, the following year, I was back to settle down.

So you were lured to Africa by a canvas bag, not by the Maasai.

(Chuckles). You know, what really excited me about this product was the fact that at a time when most products were being manufactured in Asia, here was a bag being manufactured in Africa.

At a time when most companies were outsourcing, this guy was doing it himself and he had this unique platform to create stories with canvas, I loved the heritage. I thought that was extraordinary!

Have your 20 years in advertising impacted positively on the brand and if yes, how?

Speaking commercially, advertising is all about understanding a brand then communicating the right message. But advertising can’t solve all problems, if you have a bad brand, no matter how much advertising you throw at it, it won’t solve the problem.

Sandstorm didn’t need advertising; it hasn’t needed advertising for the last five years. The challenges we faced were not of the brand but other facets of the business that we needed to fix. We have been looking at the brand holistically, not in terms of advertising.

What challenges do you face?

Getting our products to our Tanzania outlet can take a month! The Tanzanian authorities aren’t quite co-operative as one would like them to be.

When people say East African Cooperation, I always wonder what that is. (Smiles). Business would be a lot better if The East African countries co-operated more. Trade would flourish.

Who buys Sandstorm?

We had one of the best sales just before and after the last elections when there were no tourists in sight for miles, so definitely not tourists. It’s the expats and Kenyan citizens.

What inspires you?