Jess Gilliland.
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.
Jess Gilliland: Senior creative strategy manager at Pedestrian Group.
Time in current role:
2.5 years at Pedestrian Group, with 1 year as Senior Creative Strategy Manager.
How would you describe what the company does?
At Pedestrian.TV we speak fluent youth, connecting young Australians to culture in their own tongue. On the commercial side, Pedestrian Group helps brands not just show up in culture, but understand and then shape it without the red tape or buzzword bingo. We help them signal what everyone is feeling, but not saying yet.
What do you do day to day?
Constant problem solving. Research, discover, insight mine. Ideate and pitch ideas. Write pitch decks and tell stories. Maximise and guide the creative thinking of the team. No day is ever the same, and I learn a new thing about the world and about people and culture every day!
Define your job in one word:
Curiosity.
I got into my industry because:
I fell into branding/marketing as a teenager promoting my own music events in Sydney. I wanted to create a brand, not just sell tickets outside clubs… and this evolved into consulting some of the top event brands in Sydney on their strategy to target 18-25 year olds, when they were Millennials. I always loved understanding what makes people tick and telling stories, so an eventual move into doing creative strategy in media was a given.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role?
Creative resilience in a sales environment. Something I’ve learnt over the years is not being knocked back when ideas aren’t sold. There are many reasons why an idea may not sell or proceed. You can sell it, pitch it amazingly and one decision-maker may still not buy into it.
What’s the biggest industry wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
Tackling the fact that generations aren’t each a monomass. The industry can tend to speak about generations as being one oversimplified segment. Generations can offer a starting framework, but it's the sub-groups inside them shaped by life stage, politics, values, digital habits, socioeconomics and more that matter in creating genuinely effective campaigns. Speaking to Gen Z as a whole is far less powerful than speaking to your niche specific audience within Gen Z.
Who has been a great mentor to you and why?
Whitney Meldrum-Hanna has been my strategy and partnerships guru. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her guidance, support and insight. Thank you, Whit!
Words of advice for someone wanting a job like yours?
Shake up the regular old cover letter, hiring managers are reading hundreds of them. Treat it like a campaign to sell yourself. Also - have a point of view. Strategists are hired for theirs.
If I wasn’t doing this for a living, I'd be:
Probably back playing music professionally! I toured Europe for 2 years in a synth pop band until COVID hit. You do as much culture-learning and curious people watching in an internationally touring band as you do in creative strategy.
My philosophy is:
Everything is a remix, you need to stop thinking of ideas as being completely original. (Who was it that said great artists steal?)
My favourite advert is:
Forever obsessed with the OOH campaign Spotify ran in 2016/2017 after Spotify Wrapped 2016 - “Thanks 2016, it’s been weird”. They used real user data to expose hilarious streaming behaviours. “Dear 3,749 people who streamed ‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It’ the day after the Brexit vote, Hang in there.” A really fun spin on how to use big data without the “blah”.
Music and TV streaming habits:
I listen to music on Spotify every waking moment of my life and find so much insight into human behaviour from reality TV. I’m a Real Housewives stan. Also, any crime or deeply psychological drama keeps me sharp.
What do you subscribe to?
Hundreds of Substacks and newsletters: the latest being CONTENT by Thom Betteridge. Thom changed the way I thought about content in 2018 with his op-ed The Big Flat Now for 032c Magazine, during his tenure there.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
My colleagues know most things about me as I’m an oversharer. I was going to say they may not know I was Tumblr famous in 2009-2011 but then clocked my “BIG ON TUMBLR” sign I wore for Halloween a few years back behind my monitor.
In five years time I'll be:
Explaining to a client why Gen Alpha aren’t just mini Gen Zs.
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