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.
Sarah Baskerville: Head of Growth at Magic
Time in current role/time at the company:
Three months
How would you describe what the company does?
Magic is an independent agency that has been quietly growing over the last five years with a unique approach to measurably growing its clients’ businesses.
We apply math to media and marketing problems and it’s proving to be quite a powerful marriage to inform the delivery of greater commercial outcomes for our clients business, in and out of media and marketing
What do you do day-to-day?
I lead marketing and growth for Magic.
Core to my role is leading our vision for growth, scaling our business and helping Magic realise its potential and position in the market. I work hand in glove with our senior leadership team to deliver this via strategic partnerships and the productisation of our proprietary platform Mediamatics.
Define your job in one word:
Consequential
I got into marketing/advertising/media/tech because:
I got a thirst for advertising in my first (big girl) job as a signwriter. From there I got the courage to knock on the MD at the Mudgee Guardian’s door when I saw them advertising for a Advertising Executive. The role came and went three times before I got my fifteen minutes and to my great excitement my persistence paid off and I landed my first advertising gig.
I will never forget the significance of that moment. This kind man took a chance on me and I try to hold onto that sparkly feeling I had then for our industry everyday in my career since particularly on the days that are less than sparkly.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role?
Focus and faith.
Staying on course and committed to moving the metrics that really matter for our business and not wearing one of the many hats one wears in a boutique business for too long at the expense of the hard measures. I also need to place a huge amount of faith in the process and the market to realise our success.
What’s the biggest industry-wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
There are some big pickles to solve in our industry right now. I have my eyes set on a few that I find myself compelled to take to the streets on.
The first is the healthy marriage of work and life. Creating a world in which our great loves at home and at work can coexist harmoniously
The second is the sustainable health of the industry. The business models of local media are broken and we are yet to find the solution for them to co-exist with platforms. It’s hard to watch the creators and storytellers of media shops failing to monetise the important work they do in our society.
We are watching another business model being slowly broken with the commoditisation of the special talent and work that lives in the agency landscape. It is a self-perpetuating cycle that is eroding the sector's potential to create the market defining work that often lures us into the industry.
Notable campaigns you have worked on:
My team and I built Australia's first branded newsroom that operated inside the largest newsroom in the country. A Community Newsroom was purpose built for a major Australian supermarket to elevate its community credentials and tell the stories of the retailer’s ongoing contributions to Australian communities.
An editorially driven integrated campaign was built around this newsroom to deliver trusted content to targeted audiences from grassroots to a national scale across Australia's largest media network.
This campaign was key to elevating trust in the minds of consumers for this Australian retailer.
Who has been a great mentor to you?
My husband, Robbie
If I had half the belief in myself that he does I would be a force.
He is my biggest cheerleader, despite us having three children and two demanding careers to balance. There is a path of destruction in our wake at times in trying to hold it together (we do not make it look easy!) though it has never seen him waver in his support of me reaching for the stars.
He is a brave and wise man and a constant source of reason in each career intersection I find myself in.
Words of advice for someone wanting a job like yours?
Focus on the process, not the outcome.
It's yours if you want it. Don't overthink it. Don't talk yourself out of it. Don’t try to control the uncontrollables. Make the first move and keep moving. One firm foot in front of the other everyday and you might just find one day, when you look back, you are amazed at how far you have travelled in your unqualified and uncertain shoes.
And if you find you wake up in less than uncertain shoes one day it might be time to walk a little further afar and challenge yourself.
If I wasn't doing this for a living, I'd be:
Making something. Creating! Something of my own, somewhere beautiful.
My mantra is:
Focus on the process, not the outcomes.
If we get the process right, the outcomes will take care of themselves!
Oh, and a good one I always lean on for my personal sanity: “Not everything is about me!” Enough said.
My favourite advert is:
The Telstra series of 26 stop-motion films has me chuckling like a kiddo at the moment. I really enjoyed this work from a brand that I felt like I had heard very little of note from in quite a while.
Looking back though, you can’t go past a bit of Aussie irony entering the vernacular with ‘not happy Jan’ from the Yellow Pages ad of the early noughties.
Music and TV streaming habits. What do you subscribe to?
This working mumma doesn't get a lot of time to read or watch these days though I do love me a podcast and an audiobook to escape in.
My go to podcasts are The Daily, The Journal and The Economist with a side of Audible to complement my mix of world political/finance/business/industry news that I find strangely entertaining on my morning commute. I really need to find my way back to Seinfeld to lighten the mood someday
Latest reads are Elon Musk’s biography and Boy Swallows Universe, which has me laughing, crying and every emotion in between.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
There isn't a great deal that people at work don’t know about me as I’m a very open human that tends to see my personal and work life collide often, and not always in a censored fashion.
In five years' time I'll be...
I have faith in the pursuit of being equally fulfilled and challenged at work while having some harmony at home with my family. I live in hope.
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