A year ago I transferred to MediaCom London from the Melbourne office.
I wanted a change from a city that I love, but that I had long been taking for granted, and thought a move might help to fight that horribly un-motivating feeling of being too comfortable in my life. I also, like many others, wanted to accelerate my career and thought getting some of that London experience I’d heard so much about would help.
Now nobody had specifically told me that London would fast-track my career, but there was something in how most of the senior positions within my agency at that time were occupied by Brits.
In both Melbourne and Sydney the heads of strategy at MediaCom were Brits, our MD was British, my manager was British and the head of my department had spent most of her working life in the UK, and pronounced data funny.
So, after a few months of emails, Skype interviews and help from a few of the aforementioned colleagues, I was on my way to London, to the global head office and to the grey cold of London in March.
For anyone that’s wondering, it’s actually quite easy to relocate to the UK. If, like me, you have heritage, (but not the right sort of heritage to get a European passport), all you need for the two year working visa is to be under 30 and not have a criminal record. Sorry if this is bad news for anyone reading this, I hope you’re staying out of trouble, and I’m pleased to see that you’re spending your time reading advertising blogs rather than committing crimes.
I thought it would be interesting to write down my thoughts on my first year working in the UK for anyone thinking of making the jump, but also for anyone not and working in Australia, because I’ve honestly felt a streak of pride about the way we do things at home and I think people over here could learn a thing or two from us.
In the beginning, like most new things, I thought it was a bit weird. The office was too quiet for the 800 people that worked there. For a while to make myself feel better I was being really loud. I’d often just walk around telling complete strangers that they were doing a good job, and giving them the thumbs up if they made eye contact with me. Maybe I was trying to let them know that everything was going to be fine, you know? For a while I just got weird looks, and then people got used to it and started saying hello to me in the elevator, or maybe I got used to them and started being a bit more calm so that they’d felt comfortable enough to be in a confined space with me.
One of my first frustrations, which I still have today, is meetings. So many meetings. “Let’s have a meeting” are now four words that fill me with dread. In an office of 800+ people it can be a full-time job in itself trying to be from the same agency. A meeting about a meeting. A meeting about a meeting about a meeting. A meeting about how five departments can get into a room together, to figure out how five departments can come together to provide a response. This was a big difference from Aus, where I felt we just sort of got on with things.
In terms of the work, I can honestly say the experience I gained in Australia has set me off on a strong path in the UK. I went from an office of 80 in Melbourne to 800 in London. In Melbourne you were friends with your MD, could help out on any project, and your job title encompassed a lot more. London can often feel siloed, and your job can tend to be one task repeated, and then passed on to the next department (after lots of meetings). At home we learn from being exposed to much more. You know what’s happening in the whole agency, both from knowing most of the people working there, and working more closely together between the different departments.
The other thing I love about working in Australia is the willingness for people to share their ideas. It didn’t matter what level you were in a stretch session, as long as you were there being positive and trying to come up with some great ideas. There’s also a genuine level of excitement when you get a bunch of Australian people in a room together, I think it takes less for us to relax around people we don’t know as well. The levels of excitement over ideation and just giving something a go are both things I think the UK could learn a thing or two about.
On the other side, one thing I’ve taken away from London so far is learning how to deal with bigger clients, bigger budgets, and bigger ideas. In Melbourne I felt that in the speciality department I was in that we were fighting for budgets, and to even get onto the plan. It felt like constant pitching within our own agency.
In my first week here I sat in a brainstorm for one of the larger clients. Someone asked about budgets for this side experiential project, outside any campaign, just something extra, and we were informed it was probably £1 million, and that we could come up with whatever we wanted. It was the whole “If we had a million dollars what would we do,” question you usually get asked in brainstorms, but in reality. I think the idea that came out of it ended up being a stadium powered by the crowd’s footsteps somewhere in South America.
You also learn to look and think outside of your market. Being the central office there are lots of projects that span the UK and Europe, or else are being planned out of the London office for South America or Scandinavia. I think this sort of planning is going to be hugely useful when coming back into our market.
Another thing is the amount of knowledge my colleagues over here seem to consume. They know everything backwards and unless I actively try harder I fall behind. The standard here seems so high that you have to push yourself to learn in order to stay ahead. I felt like there was some of that in Australia, different people I knew that really pushed it and me, and that you’d try and keep up with, but I’ve felt the emphasis placed a bit higher here from my managers.
There are a few little funny things too… I was sitting in a meeting with someone quite senior who described Australia as a pet market. And there’s not a week that goes by that the colleague I sit next doesn't reply to my questions about things with… What, That’s an odd name, I’d have called them Chazwazzas.
Yesterday we were sitting in a brainstorm and another Aussie colleague got really excited and threw out the idea of putting a huge pool on the back of a truck and driving it around the UK. All I could think was eff yes, getting carried away in the excitement of the stretch, but we were politely reminded that we’re not in Australia anymore and the idea of driving a pool around the UK might not work quite as well as it would at home.
So far working and living in a new city has been everything I thought it would. It can be hugely exciting and awe-inspiring, but can also be extremely lonely and foreign. You have homesick waves that hit you for about 10 minutes, but then something awesome happens and you remember why you’re on the other side of the world. I’m definitely not comfortable anymore, and that’s really all you can ask for if you’re trying to push yourself.
I’m looking forward to the second year of my visa, knowing I’ll come back with a diversified set of skills and experiences that should set me in good stead for whatever is next.
If any of this resonates with you, then give me a shout. You can come and work with me in London and, fingers crossed your finder's fee will mean a nice vacation around Europe in summer!
David Toussaint
MediaCom