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.
This week we speak to SCA national account manager Sophie Azzopardi.
Time in current role/time at the company:
five and half. 18 months as a direct account manager, two as a direct account manager and then two as an agency account manager.
How long have you been in the industry?
five and a half years
How did you get here? Was this always the plan?
I didn’t even know radio advertising sales or even media advertising sales was a job possibility after completing a Business and Psychology degree, the natural and pushed path was to go into Marketing or HR.
Straight after uni I went to work at as a marketing coordinator in a small management consulting firm, and one day I came into the city to meet a friend for dinner who worked at 2DayFM, she offered to walk me through the offices, and from that moment I knew I had to work in radio and SCA.
From there, I did my research into the different teams and departments in radio and media and landed on the sales advertising team as the best fit for my skills, and career progression. And I’ve been here ever since.
Who is your right hand person/who guides you day to day?
My dad, it has and always will be. He always pushed me extremely hard to achieve things I didn’t think possible at school and uni and instilled a work ethic in me that is hard to come by in this generation.
Having built his own Graphic Design business, dad knows the challenges and solutions of running a business portfolio which was priceless in my first few years as an account manager, he is super creative so he’s my sounding board for a lot of my creative responses.
Some of my favourite campaigns I’ve sold have come from ideas that originated with us chatting around the dining table.
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
The people, and I feel like everyone would give that answer and that’s because it is utterly true.
The people in the media industry are what make it, from the people you work with internally to the clients and professional relationships that you can create within agencies and with clients directly.
I’ve developed some of my strongest adult friendships through those I have worked with or met through media.
And the biggest challenge?
The daily increase in advertising platforms for advertisers, it’s an extremely fragmented market that is only increasing as digital grows and expands its opportunities taking away client focus on the traditional forms of media.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
Can’t share all my secrets, but I can tell you it’s someone senior internally leading the sales team at SCA
Where do you turn for inspiration?
The people around me – colleagues, friends, clients, family.. I lean on those who are closest to me at the time usually
My favourite advert is (and why):
The University of New England Radio Commercials – this is one of my clients and their creative message truly speaks to the target audience in the most logical way of explaining their USP (individual subject selections) in a way that is relatable for people listening to the medium and stands out in a highly cluttered category.
Why I think it is so successful, is that it’s written by the clients themselves, not creative writers but the people that understand the business, the clear category differentiation and the behaviour change that they’re wanting to elicit by listeners.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I am a qualified chef
In five years' time I'll be:
Hopefully well on my way to that job I’ve set my sights on
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