Our Young Gun profile takes a look at some of the young talent across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles, people and companies across the buzzing industry.
Today we speak to Bastion EBA creative strategist Georgia Patch.
Time at current company:
Six months as a Creative Strategist at Bastion EBA.
How long have you been in the industry?
For three and a half years (plus a year working in the tech start-up world in the UK).
How did you get here?
I have always had a hybrid brain; my mum is an artist and my dad is a doctor, so I find I daydream as much I scrutinise. When I finished uni, I landed a job at Host in account management and elbowed my way into the planning department which happened 10 months after I joined when I was short-listed for a paper I wrote on mental health for Planning Idol.
When I had built up the foundations of strategy, I decided to apply these skills to something I really cared about: equal rights. Words form a big part of a planner’s job and in my daily hunt, a colleague and I noticed everyday word descriptions were laced with archaic sexism (e.g. housework “she still did all the housework”, “nagging - a nagging wife”, ugly - she was ugly and fat”). So with no budget, media or brand backing we launched a campaign called #RedefineWomen on Instagram. We generated over $4M in organic PR and turned 18 out of 21 sexist definitions into gender neutral, effectively stamping out sexism from over 21M searches per year. We ended up picking up a One Show Gold Pencil, Cannes Lion and Effies. I did this with a creative, Kiah Nichols who I’m still good friends with.
After three years at Host, I moved to London and worked in the marketing department for a start-up, Vero. I co-led partnerships and helped grow the platform from 50K users to over 4M. Now I’m back in Aus and working at Bastion EBA as a creative strategist helping clients turn imagination into strategic and impactful experiential campaigns, which is a whole new side to the industry to me.
Who guides you day to day?
Matt McCann who is the general manager at EBA. Experiential is a relatively new world to me and EBA is on an exciting trajectory shifting from a sports partnership business to a creatively led experiential agency. So, in my role I’m helping expand the type of projects we execute and breadth of work we do by working closely with Matt and the team!
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
An idea can sprout from anyone, anywhere. Ideas don’t really discriminate and when you come across a good idea you can feel it.
And the biggest challenge?
Confidence! Convention tells you you’re meant to get more and more confident, but I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% confident.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
Chief strategic offer. Although, I find this question hard as I'm fairly open-minded and interested in design-thinking, operations and social enterprise.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
Books. Fictional books mostly, but also non-fiction. I like reading because it sparks empathy and I respect people who labour over words and their sentences.
My favourite ad is:
I have a mix, and I'm more interested in how brands have activated on their brand platform or idea e.g. Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ + “Sketches”; Johnnie Walker’s ‘Keep Walking’ + “The Man Who Walked Around The World”; Honda’s ‘The Power Of Dreams’. I also love a good, simple print ad like Stabilo Boss’ “Highlight the Remarkable”.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I collect first edition Alice In Wonderland books.
In five years' time I'll be:
Finally doing a big trek in New Zealand or somewhere in South America.
What’s your personal motto?
A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men - Roald Dahl.
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