Johannesburg — WHEN a CEO employs directors of social impact, musicology, and strategy and serendipity, you know this isn't your average creative house.

"We're an unlikely group of people with different backgrounds," says Cal Bruns -- founder, CEO, and chief creative incubationist of Matchboxology -- "but we share the concept that we can combine research and ideation, and change the world through brands."

Still speaking with an accent from the suburbs of Kansas, Bruns has lived out of the US for more than 20 years, many of them spent with ad agency Leo Burnett in New Zealand, Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic.

He arrived in Jo'burg in 1998, although he is now based in Cape Town, where he has opened a second office.

"What I discovered about the world is that global and local brands do two things: they create demand through good advertising; and they impact on evolving societies."

In SA, Bruns saw how brands significantly influence a changing society.

"People define themselves through brands, and brands can be used to define people. For example, in SA if I say BMW, Hugo Boss, RMB -- you instantly have a picture of someone." And I do. "The brands have done that for you."

Matchboxology's "products" -- and that's a poor word to describe them -- fall under two categories that feed into and off each other: consumer social opportunities (CSOs) and musicology.

"A CSO is about making a connection between a brand, its users and a social problem. Companies need to get the CEO, marketing, human resources -- and the person in charge of corporate social investment -- together and look at the issues as a team, and incubate ideas. Your brand has created a captive and engaged audience -- use them for social change."

This isn't just a creative house with a soul, it's fundamentally changing the way brands and society interact. Bruns says despite sitting in "about a million meetings" with marketing professionals, the issue of a brand's footprint in a changing society -- and a need for social change -- has never been discussed.

"There are obviously exceptions," he says. "But fundamentally I find the CEO and marketing director still think of CSI as money, not a branded aspect of their core business. I challenge companies to evaluate their social investment strategies as they do their marketing ones. If they do, they'll see the impact is visible and significant and beneficial to their clients, their employees, and their brand. When CSI is outsourced too much, I think it can become a problem; social investment should be a business challenge like any other, and addressed as creatively."

Matchboxology, which employs 21, was started by Bruns in a coffee shop in Jo'burg with one account: Levi's. The campaign "Red for Life", created for and with Levi's by Matchboxology, is one of their most successful case studies.

"In SA, Levi's emphasis was, rightly, on HIV, but as usual they were acting like most companies as a 'silent funder'; giving millions over to an organisation. No one knew about it -- not the employees or the customers -- and there was no feedback. With an enlightened MD we realised it's not just about money but using the credibility of the brand to speak to millions of consumers in a meaningful way. This was about five years ago."

"We persuaded Levi's to co-brand with the organisation New Start and convince young people to undergo voluntary HIV testing and get counselling. We gave the campaign the cachet of being cool. Using Levi's large marketing engine and their network of celebrities and music stars, we helped fundamentally change attitudes."

Because the customers knew and trusted the brand, there was no need for covert coercion or didactics. "We laid out the facts and gave kids credit for being smart and knowing what to do about testing. New Start monitored it every year and each year, nationwide, testing increased 100% since Levi came on as partners."

Social issues can and should benefit from the same marketing strategy in place for the brand. "The magic, the serendipity, occurs when two disparate things -- jeans and HIV testing -- combine to change behaviour."

And increase sales.

"Levi's is selling more jeans than before; more than with just their traditional marketing."

They also gave away more than one-million branded condoms -- Matchboxology calls them brandoms -- with the Levi's logo. "Nobody ever wanted their brand near a condom," says Bruns. "But Levi's did it -- they put their money where their mouth is!"

Anatomically, this is a bit off base, but I get where he's coming from.

With a background in photojournalism, Bruns entered the advertising world for the usual reason: "It seemed cool." Starting as copywriter he moved to creative director and then executive creative director, but after a few years in SA he decided to "mutate into something new".

"At Matchboxology we see doing good as doing good business; one needn't be at the expense of the other. The engine of the world is capitalism and we have to work within that reality to create genuine solutions to social problems."

For Bruns, shareholders wanting a return is not mutually exclusive to getting a better society and a better workplace.

"They say you can't measure social return, but in five years, somewhere in the world, social impact will be a measurable metric, I guarantee you. Some whizz kid is cracking that code -- I wish it was us, but it isn't. But just as measuring your carbon footprint wouldn't have been considered doable 20 years ago, in the future there will be a way to tangibly measure social change for managers."

As music is a touch point with consumers on an emotional level, harnessing it for social impact strategies and their branding is an obvious move for Bruns. As he puts it, brands are often great sponsors but not always great inspirers.

"We've built an expertise in connecting customers with brands using music as the conduit . Usually there are three elements: the artist, the brand and the social issue. And usually the three are kept separate and managed by different people. We bring them all together."

I suggest that the purists, the artists, may see this as selling out to commercialism. Bruns is unswayed. "Then that artist can expect to starve. All artists have to be paid -- and what is better than to be paid for doing what you love? We've got influential artists on board helping make genuine change. The musicians trust us, they see what we're doing and they're inspired too. This isn't 'Please turn up and do a free gig for charity'. They're involved every step of the way."

And his director of musicology, Bradley Williams, is also known as DJ Bionic and is one of SA's "local hip hop legends". So no selling out there.

Matchboxology is starting to work with the government, with the South African National Aids Council and the Department of Health, where the levels of mutual trust are a long way from those of the music world.

"Bridging that gap of mistrust has been the biggest learning curve for us -- and it shouldn't exist as we have the same goals. There is a lot of pent-up desire to create change in the public sector, and the expertise and capacity lie within the private sector; together we can do amazing things."

One mandatory part of his business is to never assume they understand the problem, unlike his advertising world of old. "When a client called the ad agency, the first thing we'd do is call in the creative team and pitch a great idea as the 'solution'. Now, not assuming we know the problem or the creative solution -- yet -- is a fruitful philosophy. "

Bruns admits to enjoying his long career in advertising. "I was good at it. I made a lot of money for people, and that was cool and I enjoyed it immensely. But now I wake up thinking my creativity has a greater social benefit. And I like that more."