Strategy plays a significant role in PR and marketing as it ensures brands get the best value for their money. One brand taking this seriously is AURA. Drawing on years of experience across strategic communications, reputation management and brand building, founder and CEO Nicole Mirkin has launched AURA as a premium brand advisory firm designed to offer clients something more meaningful than publicity for publicity’s sake. Together with managing director Lee-Ann Caboz, Mirkin is positioning the business as a more integrated, senior-led and commercially focused player in South Africa’s communications space.
For Mirkin, the decision to build AURA was not about entering a crowded market with just another agency model. It was about responding to a real gap she had observed in the industry. As she explains, “I noticed that most PR agencies tended to publish ‘fluff’ for their clients – without taking into consideration any degree of strategy that would ultimately benefit their brands.” She adds that her approach has always valued campaign execution that supports a business’s commercial goals or business development needs, because without that strategic layer, you’re simply delivering ineffective advertising.
AURA’s Identity
The firm presents itself not as a traditional PR agency, but as a premium brand curation business, a distinction that reflects how Mirkin and Caboz believe modern brands should be built. According to AURA’s founding manifesto, a brand is shaped by every interaction and every promise kept. Rather than merely managing reputation, the agency aims to build the world around a brand through a mix of strategy, identity and storytelling.
Mirkin’s own career path helps explain why this approach matters so deeply to her. Her journey was one shaped by high-stakes narrative management, from the corridors of political power to multinational technology and digital organisations. Over the years, she has built a reputation as a trusted advisor on crisis communications, stakeholder strategy and reputation management. That background taught her a lesson she still carries into her work today: “Every brand has a story. The question is whether you are telling it, or whether someone else is telling it for you,” says Nicole.
Caboz brings a different but equally valuable dimension to the business. Her experience spans consumer, tech and e-commerce-led brands, including iconic names such as Crocs, Under Armour, Birkenstock, Zando, MTN and Distell. Her strength lies in helping brands resonate locally, something she describes as “cultural translation.” As she puts it, “South Africa is not a market you can copy-paste into. It demands that you actually listen to the culture, to the consumer, to the moment.”
Crafting AURA for Brands
The idea for AURA grew out of a shared belief that the traditional agency model was built for a different era, one where communications, digital, marketing and growth could still operate in silos. Today, brands need those disciplines to work together.
Reflecting on that turning point, Mirkin says, “We kept having the same conversation. About what brands actually need versus what they’re typically getting. And at some point, we looked at each other and said, “Why are we not just building this ourselves?”
The result is a business model structured around three interconnected spheres: Consumer Curation, B2B and Strategic Influence, and Across Division Foundation. Together, these pillars cover everything from media relations, brand communications and activations to thought leadership, crisis communications, creative identity, content and performance marketing. The goal is to give clients a more integrated offering without losing the sharpness and care that often disappear in bigger agency structures.
Mirkin says this structure is also meant to serve the commercial realities of local businesses. “This approach allows clients to leverage our skillsets based on the budget they have available,” she says. Aura’s tiered approach allows clients to pick and choose a focus area and grow over time.
Making Brands Culturally Relevant
Another defining feature of the agency is its emphasis on cultural relevance. For Mirkin, strategy only works when it connects with what people are actually living through. “Simply put: we help brands be a little more relatable,” she says. That means implementing marketing strategies that go deeper into thought leadership, sharpening visual storytelling and ensuring every brand message feels relevant to South Africans in the present moment. “We ensure that each client, and their brand, is culturally relevant to South Africans, based on what consumers are experiencing right now.”
Mirkin points to Sensor Networks as an example of this thinking in action. On the surface, smart geyser devices may not sound like an obvious story. But viewed through the lens of South Africa’s energy crisis and rising cost of living, the narrative changes.
“It isn’t easy work ensuring that a brand’s identity is not lost in that process,” she says, “but that’s where the magic truly lies.” She explains that the devices have the potential to reduce electricity demand while helping households save on monthly bills. “Now that’s a story,” she says. “That’s culturally relevant in a society held hostage by a cost-of-living crisis and non-stop electricity price hikes.”
Building on Their Own Terms
There is also a broader leadership story behind AURA’s rise. Mirkin and Caboz are two highly experienced women choosing to build something on their own terms. Mirkin is careful not to let that overshadow the quality of the work, but she does recognise its significance.
“I want AURA to be celebrated for the quality of the work. Full stop,” she says. Looking ahead, Mirkin’s vision for AURA is focused and grounded. Rather than chasing scale for the sake of appearances, she is committed to consistency and excellence.
“My vision is to continue to deliver great outcomes for clients. Nothing more, nothing less,” she says. “We don’t need to scale further; we don’t need to steal market share from bigger competitors. We just need to be ourselves and do what we do well.”
Strategy plays a significant role in PR and marketing as it ensures brands get the best value for their money. One brand taking this seriously… Read More
