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.
Previously we met technical client manager at AppNexus Sydney, Erika Milton. Today we catch up with Blue 449 analytics director Ben Petremont.
How long have you been in the industry?
Three years in a media agency. Four years in marketing
Duration in current role/time at the company:
Three years
What were you doing before this job and how did you get this gig?
Before joining Blue449 I was a pre-sales engineer based in South East Asia, helping APAC governments to select and deploy the best biometric solution fulfilling their needs.
Define your job in one word:
Enthralling
What were your real and cliché expectations of working in the industry?
The real expectations were around a constantly evolving and challenging industry that required commitment and hard work. Clichés were mostly about the culture and ‘festive extras’.
How does the reality match up?
Both turned out to be spot on. The rate of change was the unexpected element and took some adjusting to, as in my previous industry this wasn’t as pronounced.
How would you describe what the company does and what does your role involve?
Our DNA is to help our clients grow sustainably by creating innovative work that works. This might involve media, or might not involve media anymore. Our team is specifically responsible for fuelling that growth by constantly innovating, scaling the output and most importantly, democratising what we do with our peers and clients so they can do what we were the only ones doing 6 months ago.
Best thing about the industry you work in:
No day has been the same as the one before. There is no resting on what you know today to be true, as the moment your ‘good at something’ you should already be working on the next area of development.
Any major hard learnings in the job so far?
Perception and delivery. Your work is only as good as its perceived value. You can build the best 1:1 cross channels predictive model in the industry but ultimately it will end up being a waste of time if its business implications aren’t understood or actioned. This is our responsibility, to demystify what we do on a daily basis and each piece of work should be actionable. My team and I have always worked to the ‘So what?’ rule.
If you had to switch over to another department, which would it be and why?
Strategy. Analytics and srategy are two departments, of the very same nature and both work to help clients understand and answer business challenges, however come at the problems from two different angles. While we do speak different languages, use different tools, approaches and methodologies ultimately our focus is the same. Something we are overly conscience of at Blue 449 is that one working on the problem alone cannot be as good as the combination of both. In the open source method this is called a ‘knowledge collective’ – many minds with one outcome.
What's exciting you about the industry right now?
Our clients’ savviness and knowledge. Most marketers now have an advanced understanding of what works and what doesn’t, but also why. The vast majority of our client partners are now challenging us less with traditional marketing questions and more business questions such as return on investment, audience profitability, lifetime value and incremental value of marketing spend. Media agencies have never been as accountable as we are today. Each media dollar invested should be justified and have a quantifiable ROI.
What concerns you about the industry and its future?
Diversified skillsets when looking for resources. As a consequence of these new responsibilities, we are increasingly in need of a hybrid set of skills. Specialism in data or technology or media or digital is no longer enough and there is a need for versatility in skillsets to address tomorrow’s client challenges. Our team is not made of, nor do we chase, data scientists.
Who's your right hand person/who guides you day to day?
No one person to be honest, many people at Blue 449 and beyond have had a significant impact on how the team and myself, our product offer and what we do, is shaped today. I am genuinely thankful to all the people I have been learning from.
And your almighty mentor that you hope to dethrone?
A bit of everyone. I don’t know if I believe that dethroning people is helping anyone or any business, instead I have always strived to build and nurture talent in order to make yourself redundant, as well as enabling people above and under to do the same. Collective progress is more important to me than individual growth.
Career-wise, where do you see yourself in 2020 and how do you plan on getting there?
Today there is a need to shape a new generation of business strategists equipped with a wide range of skills. This is something we already started working on with Zara Cobb, head of strategy and planning, and on which I will be spending a fair amount of time in the near future. This is where I see myself helping shape and grow - so I can’t answer that definitively right now as the role might not exist yet.
What is the elephant in the room? The thing that no one is talking about – but they should be.
Clients’ KPIs. In some instances, allocated KPIs to teams and individuals are conflicting against each other’s, and do not always contribute in future-proofing a sustainable growth for the business.
Most KPIs are six months or 12 months based, which is excessively short to implement and deploy a three-plus years business strategy. Yearly KPIs should be the result of longer key business objectives breakdown.
This is our responsibility to question the legitimacy of existing KPIs and propose alternatives when it needs to be. It isn’t always an easy discussion to have as most of the time individual bonuses are reflecting KPIs achievement.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
Client meetings and a whiteboard. Attending client meetings, even those you do not have to, is the best way to understand what’s keeping them up at night, what their burning questions are and challenges they are facing. I find I always came back to the office with two pages of new project ideas.
Then, to turn an idea into reality, you just need a whiteboard and great brains in the room. I have not seen a single challenge yet which cannot be solved with a piece of paper and a pen.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I have been a scout for over a decade and know a few different ways to light a fire.
Favourite advert is:
Levi’s, Freedom to Move
What’s your personal motto?
A Triumph Street Triple. Jokes aside, two of them:
Serve to lead. There is always a way
I got into advertising because:
I had too many beers one night at the Porterhouse and was coerced.
If I wasn't doing this for a living, I'd be:
Working in a mechanical workshop restoring old two wheel beauties or owning a fine grocery store with a great selection of cheese and wine.
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