The MFA’s NGEN Award gives media agency executives with less than five years’ experience the opportunity to create positive impact by using their core skills: strategic thinking, creativity, storytelling and media execution expertise. NGENers were this year invited to respond to a brief for Dress for Success NSW & ACT, with a campaign objective of increasing client numbers across all of the organisation’s services.
AdNews presents, Meet the NGEN Award Finalists: Angelina Das, Marketing & Capability Specialist, and Marcus Billingham-Yuen, Client Strategy Lead at News Corp Australia
How long have you been in the industry?
MBY: 4 years and 9 months.
Angelina: Just under 3 years.
What attracted you to working in a media agency? Was this always the plan?
MBY: The plan formed when I was a kid seeing the creative magic of Don Draper on the Kodak Pitch in action. Since then, what’s kept me going is working together on big ideas for big clients that can make big change.
Angelina: The plan has always been to work at the forefront of new ideas and new thinking, never boxing myself into a corner. Being in this space allows me to work with limitless room for both change and impact, across a huge variety of clients and projects.
What were your greatest lessons from the experience of entering the NGEN Award?
MBY: #1 Be concise. #2 Avoid overthinking.
Angelina: #1 The deeper you dive into the problem, the clearer the solution becomes. #2 Don’t be afraid to play devil’s advocate with your own ideas.
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
MBY: We’re in a place where blue sky imagination is celebrated and can be made a reality. That’s pretty special to me.
Angelina: It’s like having a front row seat to where ideas are born, stories are told and trends are shaped.
What does the MFA industry purpose of We Are The Changers mean to you?
MBY: It means that we have both the privilege and responsibility of inspiring real change through our practice as media professionals.
Angelina: We’re at the centre of change; we create it and we’re constantly adapting to it.
From your experience of the industry so far, which skills do you think are most valuable for now and for the future?
MBY: For now? Being able to simplify complicated things and articulate with confidence your point of view especially when we have an overwhelming amount of data and tools (now AI) at our disposal.
For the future? Relationship building and being willing to say ‘hello’ first to make that connection, because you never know where it’ll take you.
Angelina: Stakeholder engagement is, and always be, a non-negotiable skill. It’s the bridge that connects us to our audiences, ensuring our ideas don’t veer off-course.
In the future, as the number of tools at our disposal continues to rise, knowing when and how to effectively use (or not use) each will also become critical.
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