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
Lucinda O’Brien: Senior creative strategist at Amplify
Time in current role:
9 months (started in Nov 2021)
How long have you been in the industry?
6 years
How did you get here? Was this always the plan?
Starting out, I didn’t know about creative strategy. I’ve been lucky enough to work with and learn from many talented creatives and strategists to find this niche for myself.
After graduating with a Bachelors of Business and Journalism, I moved to Los Angeles, where I worked in brand strategy at a digital agency. As a part of the creative team, I worked on copywriting, art direction, creative concepting, and brand development–in addition to cultural insight reporting and crafting strategic frameworks. Today, I work in a hybrid role between creative and strategy at Amplify–a global creative agency specialising in experience and culture.
Who is your right-hand person?
The team at Amplify is highly collaborative and multidisciplinary, which allows us to all work closely together to make our ideas a reality. Despite being a small team, our way of working has helped us unlock opportunities with some of the world's most respected brands, such as Levi's, Canva, Google, and PlayStation. I’ve already learnt so much about the creative process from Tim Baggott, the ECD at Amplify.
What is the best thing about the industry you work in?
The creativity and seeing an idea come to life. In moving from digital to experiential, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to be creative in a different way and creating something IRL that feels immersive.
And the biggest challenge?
One of the most pressing challenges the industry faces is diversity and inclusivity. The work becomes more meaningful when the room looks like the world around us and the audience we’re speaking to. This year, it was an honour to represent Amplify as a mentor in D&AD’s inaugural Shift Sydney program–helping young, self-made creatives without a university degree enter the industry.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
If I weren’t in creative strategy, I would love to create recipes like Molly Baz, write essays like Jia Tolentino or try my hand as an oyster farmer in Tasmania. But for now, I really do enjoy working between creative and strategy, so perhaps I’ll stay the course.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
Books, Pinterest, podcasts, galleries, film, Are.na, and design out in the world. Also, each week the creative team at Amplify share inspiration through a lens of innovation, culture, and experiences. I think it’s essential to pull inspiration from a wide variety of places and to keep the cultural context in mind. Otherwise, you run the risk of visual homogeneity–where the work starts to look like everything else moving through the zeitgeist.
My favourite adverts are:
I love every campaign that Billie puts out. They continue to challenge how femininity is portrayed in advertising in a way that feels real and, in turn, rebellious. In 2019, they were the first women’s razor brand to show facial hair in an ad. Last year, their Think of a Woman campaign outlined our unconscious bias about womanhood. Then most recently, the Rules of Body Hair campaign dealt with the confusing contradictions young women face in navigating shaving. I’m always excited to see what they’ll do next.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I quite like encyclopaedic and instructional books published pre-Internet. Now, we can look up absolutely anything we want to know at any moment in our day. There’s something special about these books where they walk the reader through a concept step-by-step complete with diagrams, from how to grow indoor plants to planning the perfect road trip to the natural wonder of Australia.
In five years I will be:
I will continue to work in creative strategy, mentor diverse talent in our industry, and foster an inclusive space for thoughtful strategy and creativity to thrive.
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