Our Industry Profile takes a look at some of the professionals working across the advertising, ad tech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the buzzing industry.
Meet this week's industry profile chief creative officer McCann Australia Pat Baron.
Time in current role/time at the company:
I’ve been working for McCann for seven years in Melbourne.
How would you describe what the company does?
We’re an agency dedicated to unearthing the most compelling truths about our clients’ brands and through a combination of strategic insights, award-winning creativity, story-telling, craft and innovation conveying them in the most powerful ways possible.
What do you do day-to- day?
Creativity, it’s a mindset and every-day I bring this mentality into every meeting, brief and activity.
Define your job in one word:
Creativity.
I got into advertising/ad tech/marketing etc… because:
Creativity is the only job I’ve ever had that doesn’t feel like a job.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role?
The role is full of challenges and where the greatest opportunities lay. The bigger the challenge the greater opportunity to do some good for brands and the world.
What’s the biggest industry-wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
Understanding how powerfully data can unlock creative opportunities to help us understand ourselves and the world in a way we’ve never been able to before.
Previous industry related companies you have worked at:
BBDO and JWT.
Who is/has been a great mentor to you and why?
It’s a great question. Rob Reilly and John Mescal are both great mentors of mine. I have also been a big believer that life is a great mentor.
Words of advice for someone wanting a job like yours?
Embrace rejection; to succeed you have to keep pushing despite set-backs. Rejection and originality go hand in hand.
If I wasn't doing this for a living, I'd be:
I’d be a builder. I love the way builders construct spaces from the inside and the final 10% is where magic happens.
My mantra / philosophy is:
Stop talking, start doing.
My favourite advert is (and why):
Please don’t ask me to choose, for so many reasons there are so many. One of my favourites would be McCann New York’s ‘Fearless Girl’.
Music and TV streaming habits. What do you subscribe to? (Spotify/Netflix etc)
Right now it’s ‘Talking Heads’ and streaming old episodes of ‘Lost’.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I’m a qualified barista.
In five years' time I'll be:
Smiling.
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