Passionate Assistant Brand Manager for LUX South Africa, Callan Grantham, boasts a decade of marketing experience under her belt and is planning to continue her rise in her career.
The 30-year-old, who hails from the province of KwaZulu-Natal, has an undying passion for helping brands to craft, bring to life and amplify their purpose to better serve and add value to the lives of their consumers.
As Grantham embarks on her journey to becoming an expert in her field, she is certainly making her mark, recently contributing to the Durban Open Women’s Beach Volleyball tournament, which the beauty brand partnered with Volleyball South Africa using their #ChangeTheAngle campaign to highlight sexism in sport.
The campaign also challenged media to change the focus of women sport coverage from one that objectifies female athletes to one that celebrates their sporting prowess and achievements.
Speaking with Celine Abrahams, Grantham reflects on the #DurbanOpen2023 tournament and shares advice to athletes on how to attract brands.
Hi Callan! Thank you so much for taking time to chat to our gsport Community! First up, congratulations on a successful Durban Open Women’s Beach Volleyball tournament. Please can you give us a summary of the tournament and your highlights.
Thank you, Celine. The campaign and tournament wouldn’t have been successful without our key partners, the players and media who contributed towards bringing the event to life.
As you know, the tournament had a purposeful message behind it through the Change the Angle campaign that highlighted the objectification of sportswomen by broadcasters and challenged them to change the focus of their cameras from women’s bodies to their performance.
The tournament commenced on Friday 14 April which marked the start of fixtures and ran until Sunday 16 April, ending with a nail-biting final and beautiful prize giving. My personal highlights were hearing how much the Change the Angle campaign means to the players and watching some of South Africa’s most talented female volleyball players showcase their sporting prowess and give their all in the fight for the first-place trophy.
The tournament was a great platform for women volleyball players to showcase their talents. What impact do you think this tournament will have on the growth of the sport, especially with LUX South Africa’s involvement, as well as influencers and broadcasters providing support and coverage?
I believe the campaign and tournament will help drive further awareness and interest in volleyball. The influencers, broadcasters and media that supported and covered the campaign and tournament allowed us to make volleyball visible to a large, diverse audience – some who might not have shown much interest in the sport before this.
It is vital for brands to get involved in supporting sporting events, especially when it comes to amplifying women’s sport. What is your message to brands on the benefits of backing women’s sport or individual women athletes?
The benefit for brands is that they will be contributing towards positive change and transformation in women’s sport and these partnerships/sponsorships provide an ideal opportunity to land the brand’s purpose or product messaging in a tangible way – which helps brands build credibility and consumer love.
Let’s chat more about you! Please can you tell us more about who Callan is.
I’m a 30-year-old woman who was born in the small town of Pietermaritzburg but grew up and spent most of my life in Durban. The most important things to me are my faith, my family and my purpose. I’ve been greatly blessed so that I can be a blessing to others by giving my time, the lessons I’ve learnt from life and my skills to equip and encourage others to build the best possible lives for themselves.
I’m a nature lover and as such one of my favourite things to do in my spare time is to go on hikes, especially when there is a waterfall sighting involved.
I’ve been in marketing for the past 10 years and my plan is to continue to build my career in this field.
How did you get into corporate?
During my last year at university, I applied for and was accepted to be part of a graduate programme at a well-known multinational vehicle manufacturer, where I spent the first two years of my career.
I continued to work in the automotive industry for another three years before deciding that I’d like to move into the FMCG industry, which is when I applied for a job at Unilever South Africa and was selected as the successful candidate after the interview process. Shopper Marketing Assistant was my first role at Unilever and based on needing to develop a wider understanding of the business and learn how to manage a brand I applied for my current role – Assistant Brand Manager for LUX.
What motivates you or excites you about the corporate world?
There are a lot of career opportunities in corporate and the environment allows you to have a flexible career journey. Experience and skills learnt on-the-job open more career pathways, so you aren’t restricted to a particular field based on your tertiary qualification.
As a marketeer you also have the opportunity to become an expert in the field by working within industries that are known for best-practice marketing and working on brands that are well-know and loved by South Africans.
Women today are more courageous and are venturing into spaces that are commonly known as male-dominated areas. What advice would you give to a young lady who is aiming to break into corporate and is looking to climb up the ladder?
The graduate programme that I was part of was a great introduction to corporate and opened up a lot of career opportunities for me, so my advice would be to seek out and apply for graduate programmes and internships with corporates.
With regards to career progression, since being at Unilever South Africa I’ve learnt that the most important thing is to take ownership of your career by building a short, medium and long-term plan of what you hope to achieve and how to achieve it. Then be sure to share that plan with your manager and mentor as they are key players in helping you realise it.
Unilever has also taught me to be curious and a life-long learner to ensure I Future-Fit my career by learning and developing skills that will be required for jobs and careers of the future.
What is your greatest career ambition?
It’s to become an expert in the field of marketing and brand management particularly helping brands to craft, bring to life and amplify their purpose to better serve and add value to the lives of their consumers.
Lastly, what tips would you give to athletes who are trying to attract brands to back their respective careers?
Firstly, be clear on what your brand as an athlete is – who you are, what you stand for and what you’re wanting to achieve for yourself and others through your sports career. Once you’ve decided on that, use every platform available to you to make that visible to brands that you have a synergy with.
Another important factor which helps set an athlete apart from others is to demonstrate what value you’ll help the brand achieve through the partnership/sponsorship as well as what you hope to achieve from it for yourself and those you’re wanting to impact.
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