AdNews is following the WFH Diaries with a series of Perspectives, asking two questions: What did you learn in 2021 and what are you looking forward to in 2022? We've also encouraged the industry to glam, dress for the best, and face next year with optimism.
Sam Cousins, chief strategy officer, iProspect Australia
In Feb this year we officially launched the new iProspect, and even thought it was a merging of two great existing agencies, it really was like building an agency from scratch. And whilst that was challenging it was also incredibly exciting to build product and process so fast and take culture along for the ride!! The pace has been incredible, on top of that we pitched for 35pieces of new business (converting 42% so far) at a commitment of over 6000 hours by our agency. Oh and there was this tiny thing called the longest lockdown in the world here in Melbourne not to mention the hours I spent home schooling my two kids.
What did you learn?
I learnt that our capacity to adapt as humans is incredible, to be compassionate, to still enjoy life and to stick together to get through it. Personally, I never knew I was capable of managing all of that and still producing great work and not failing as a single mum, I’m not saying it was easy but there is strength in some of the failure.
As a strategist it was an eye-opening time watching how brands reacted, how people behaved and how fast things became irrelevant. Creating work in that environment has been amazing and truly hard at the same time. Sometimes the environment was perfect and fertile for innovation or amazing ideas, that wouldn’t have worked 3 months later. And other times it felt like we could never find a way in.
I learnt that being at home is actually a gift, the fact that we’ve been able to do that and be supported by our network has made me really proud to be at dentsu. The resilience and agility of the entire iProspect team, the leadership and compassion that everyone has shown has been incredible. It makes me hugely inspired for 2022.
What are you looking forward to in 2022?
Collaborating a bit more in person, seeing our clients and people face to face. Actually, getting to spend some time in both our Sydney and Brisbane offices, and seeing the amazing foundation of this agency that we have built take off!
I’m not going to say that I’m looking forward to life being ‘back to normal’, because there is no going back to anything. There is only now, and now is what normal is! The concept of normal and how we use that term fascinates me. I’m looking forward to the new trends, the new behaviours and making that meaningful in communications for our clients.
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