Our Young Guns profile takes a weekly look at some of the young talent across the advertising, ad tech, 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 Oath senior publisher account partner Jianfei Bu.
Time in current role/time at the company:
Five years.
How long have you been in the industry?
Five years.
How did you get here?
I was a lost soul after university and signed up to an internship recruitment agency that mostly placed people in media,marketing and design. AOL happened to be the first interview I landed and was fortunate to get the job. I did a two-year stint in London before transferring to Sydney, a lot of changes during this transition, including a merger with Yahoo
to form Oath.
Who is your right hand person?
My red-bearded Chad Kroeger look-alike manager, Ashton De Santis. I make him breakfast in the morning and in return he approves my annual leave. All jokes aside, he’s someone I’ve had a really collaborative partnership with over the past two years of working together. His background is TV (has a voice for radio) which is really advantageous as broadcasters have
started to focus on their digital strategy.
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
The abundance of acronyms and buzzwords.
And the biggest challenge?
Keeping on top of all the acronyms and buzzwords.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
Elon Musk is doing some pretty disruptive things that also have a heavy focus on social responsibility. I would probably crumble at the amount of brain power required to helm the companies he does, but I think that would be one of the more interesting jobs out there.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
My friends. A lot of them are super smart and doing some cool things. A couple of them had their own startup business managing Airbnb properties which they’ve just sold.
My favourite advert is:
I started my career on the branding side of media and worked on the Volvo Epic Splits campaign which had Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits between two reversing Volvo trucks and Enya’s ‘Caribbean Blue’ playing over the top of it. That one has always stood out as a really well executed ad that showed off a product in such a memorable way. Also Enya rules.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I’m a classically trained violinist.
In five years' time I'll be:
Replaced by AI.
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