Bowan Spanbroek.
Our Industry Profile takes a look at some of the professionals working across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the buzzing industry.
Bowan Spanbroek: Vice president strategy & product - APAC at NP Digital.
Time in current role:
Nudging 3 years.
How would you describe what the company does?
Help businesses and brands grow.
What do you do day to day?
Hard question as no day is the same. Most of my time is spent working with clients on their marketing strategy and coaching our teams to push boundaries and deliver standout results.
Define your job in one word:
Pathfinder.
I got into my the industry because:
I studied psychology because of my fascination with human behaviour, but pivoted from clinical studies when I first got my hands on a Google Ads account in a university class called ‘E-marketing’, yes, e-marketing . I knew this new technology was going to change the world and wanted to ride that wave and see where it went. Here we are!
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role?
Context switching. Working across multiple timezones, cultures and brands can be demanding, but that’s also what also keeps my role interesting.
What’s the biggest industry wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
Making marketing measurement simpler, more honest, and more useful. We need less vanity metrics and more focus on what actually drives growth.
Who has been a great mentor to you and why?
Dan Kalinski. We’ve been working together over a decade together in various roles and he has always been a great mentor and guide. Dan understands the deeper meaning of client and agency partnership. I’m still learning from him every day.
Words of advice for someone wanting a job like yours?
Find meaning in the numbers and take the time to tell the story. This is where you add the most value as a marketing partner.
If I wasn’t doing this for a living, I'd be:
A movie director.
My philosophy is:
Strategy before tactics.
My favourite advert is:
The Claude/Anthropic superbowl ads. A genius level competitor attack ad with a classic diss-track by Dr Dre. Captured the essence of AI interactions, had me laughing out loud and also thinking of switching from ChatGPT.
Music and TV streaming habits:
Spotify, instrumental electronic music at work. Currently listening to a lot of modern psychedelic rock like the Allah-Las on the weekends. TV streaming I watch Apple TV and Prime Video. Really enjoying A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, such great characters.
What do you subscribe to?
Spotify, too many streaming services, Headspace, Stake, Raiz, ChatGPT and Imprint for micro-learning. I have too many subscriptions!
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
Nothing, I’m an open book and probably an over-sharer.
In five years time I'll be:
A dad to two teenagers. Pray for me.
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