…Be prepared to spend your life learning because you need to be on the cusp of cultural change.

John Halpin is Head of Media and Strategy at the award-winning customer experience agency, Apparent.

Having worked with top brands at great agencies with some very smart people, John reminds us of the necessity to keep it simple.

What does Apparent as an organisation specialise in, and as Head of Media and Strategy what do you do?
Apparent is in the business of customer experience. We help clients find, get, grow and keep customers. My role is to ensure our team of strategists and planners have the necessary resources to understand who our client’s customers are, why they use their brand and what marketing outputs we need as a result.

You’ve spent many years working in communications strategy across a few different agencies and many clients. How does that background and experience help you in your current role?
I’ve had the good fortune to work for a number of great agencies and on a lot of great brands. Most of all, I’ve worked with some very smart people who have taught me a lot about how to interrogate a marketing problem. A lot of them have pissed me off in the process. When you’re trying to hit a deadline, the last thing you need is someone coming in and tearing down all your thinking. But you learn a lot from that. The key is to realise it’s not personal. They’re not attacking you*, they’re trying to help you learn and get to a better solution. That’s taught me to set high standards, strive to achieve them, but try not to be a dickhead in the process.

*Unless they’re an arsehole, in which case find a new job.

How planned has your career been? Did you map it out from a young(er) age?
A bit of both. I wanted to get into advertising, but all I knew about advertising was ads so I figured I would be a creative. Turns out there are a lot of other jobs within the advertising industry. I stumbled into a media role and it just sort of went from there. I was always keen to learn, improve and work hard. I think that’s more important than having a definitive plan.

What's the best career advice you ever received?
Keep it simple. As an industry, Media spends a lot of time coming up with acronyms and metrics that you could argue are designed to confuse and exclude clients from the conversation. The more you use that language, the more likely you are to see client’s eyes glaze over. Remember, although your job is to deliver media campaigns which can be complex and involve lots of moving parts, those campaigns themselves are only a means to an end. To drive the Client’s business goals. A wise sage named Mike told me that and he occasionally has some useful things to say.

What's the best personal advice you ever received?
I’m in the first year of being a dad. A mate once told me;

“Having children is the best thing you can do!... and the worst thing you can do! And it can be both of those things at the same time”. 

I think I finally appreciate what they were on about. They’ve since told me that things get easier so I’m hoping that advice plays out too.

Define ‘media’:
Something that allows us to communicate with someone else. Beyond that it’s open to interpretation.

How different will 2029 be compared with 2019, particularly from a media/strategy role perspective? Do you have any gut feels?
Media will be almost unrecognisable. Just think back to 2009 - YouTube is barely two years old. The iPhone is 18 months old. Streaming services are unheard of etc, etc. Now imagine that same level of change but amplified. That’s what we have to look forward to over the next decade. And with whatever that change looks like, data will be at the heart of it. Everything will be tracked and optimised.

So what will the strategist’s role be? It will also be completely different, and yet exactly the same. Strategist’s will have an absolute abundance of data and information to wade through. If we think we’re dealing with Big Data today, it’s nothing on what’s coming. That said, machine learning and AI will go a long way to doing the processing of that information for us. Where the strategist’s role will remain the same is in finding the humanity in the data. Humans are emotional beings. We don’t behave the way we’re supposed to behave. Therein lies the opportunity for strategists.

What advice would you give to someone who has just graduated from a comms or marketing degree, and is about to launch into their career?
In relation to your job in marketing communications, you’re going to need to understand something about everything. At different points in that journey, you’re going to need to know everything about something. Then that something will need to change. Again and again. Confused? Don’t be. Just be prepared to spend your life learning because you need to be on the cusp of cultural change.

And finally, for the next generation of industry leaders, what skills or knowledge do you think will be important for them to lead the way?
The change taking place in the world of marketing communications is only going to speed up, not slow down. That’s going to make it an even more challenging and dynamic environment. Technology and marketing are closely interlinked so you need to be open to change. At the same time, business as a whole is realising it needs to become more people focused, and marketing and communications are a big part of how that focus needs to come to life. So while you’re building your knowledge around technology, don’t lose sight of your empathy for people.

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