Our Industry Profile takes a look at some of the professionals working across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the buzzing industry.
Ben Lyons: Senior performance manager at Magic
Time in current role/time at the company:
Sixteen months, since I arrived in Melbourne from the UK.
How would you describe what the company does?
We’re a media agency that works collaboratively with our clients to drive business growth utilising our Mediamatics methodology – we embed ourselves into our client’s business, understand their goals and provide full-funnel strategies to help them achieve their goals and seek continuous improvement leveraging mathematics in the process.
What do you do day-to-day?
I work closely with our clients to deliver both short-term performance and longer-term strategic objectives while managing some of the wonderful team here at Magic to deliver both. I do all of this while also tackling the challenges that all of the above throw at me on a daily basis. When in the office I also fail to win any competitive series of ping-pong despite talking an incredibly good game.
Define your job in one word:
Exciting
I got into the media industry because:
I left university halfway through studying a sports journalism degree and quickly realised I’d rather be a spectator at these events than working at them. I was unsure which career path I wanted to take, and seeing as though I enjoyed both writing and mathematics as well as having business related qualifications, marketing seemed like an industry where I could utilise these skills.
Instead of pursuing another degree and punishing my liver any further at university, I decided to pursue an apprenticeship in marketing for a B2B sales and management training company that taught me all the core fundamentals in digital marketing and decided that it seemed a pretty exciting industry to be a part of.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role?
It’s incredibly fast paced and having to pivot between different clients in different industries all with their individual nuances can sometimes be hectic but also a challenge I love getting stuck into.
What’s the biggest industry-wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
The black-box element to so many channels – the lack of transparency this provides can sometimes make our roles challenging, especially with the limitations of data that are sacrificed for sometimes small increases in certain metrics.
What are you most excited about in the next 12 months?
As Magic have kindly sponsored me to stay on in Australia for the foreseeable, I’m very much looking forward to continuing to build on the great results and relationships I have formed with my clients over the last 12 months (and I know it’s meant to be work related but Oasis at the Marvel and Bazball arriving on these shores this time next year makes the next year even more exciting).
Who has been a great mentor to you and why?
I’ve worked with some incredible people over the years, but the person who has had the biggest impact on my career is Andy Weddell-Hall. He took a bit of a chance hiring me at Holland & Barrett despite me not having any e-commerce experience but, through his leadership and guidance, he elevated my skills up several levels as well as building my understanding of how all marketing channels work together. His ‘radical candour’ approach meant I knew where I stood and building that relationship of constructively challenging each other really grew me as a marketer and in the workplace in general. We worked together again at British furniture retailer Sofa Carpet Specialists where I ended up being under his wing for many years and am very grateful for the guidance and support he gave to me over the years.
Incredibly honourable mention goes to Sam Terminelli at Magic who most recently has taken my strategic view of marketing to a completely different level (I’ll have to take a very long, cold shower after heaping so much praise on those two…)
Words of advice for someone wanting a job like yours?
Always be keen to learn and there’s no such thing as a stupid question (as much as my team will probably disagree on that…). With an industry that’s constantly evolving this will put you in pretty good stead.
If I wasn't doing this for a living, I'd be:
DJing around the world at festivals and in places like Ibiza and Las Vegas or playing football (soccer) and earning ridiculous amounts of money, however I don’t know how to use decks and my hamstrings are made of poppadums so I’ll have to make do with marketing for now.
My mantra is:
After Googling ‘positive mantras’ as I’m not quite bright or profound enough to come up with one: Treat people how you’d like to be treated – it’s a crap cliché but a bit of empathy goes a long way.
My favourite advert is:
Back in the UK it was only Christmas when the Coca Cola trucks appeared on your screen and it always got me excited for the festive season. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, owners of Sportsbet, push the boundaries with their ads, with the Rhodri Giggs ad of him promoting their loyalty programme after his brother famously had an affair with his wife probably the most inspired one.
Music and TV streaming habits:
Obsessed with music and sports and spend way too much on all of these – I’ve adopted AFL since my move down under so Kayo spends a lot of time on my TV as well as Optus and Bein, I’ve also built the same Spotify playlist since I was about 14 and can see all the musical phases I went through from 80s to dubstep, so a pretty wild ride on the shuffle going from Skrillex to Duran Duran.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
If anything, my colleagues know too much about me – however a weird one is I have an irrational fear of mushy peas.
In five years' time I'll be:
Likely still working in the industry, watching football and going to festivals wondering what could have been…
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