Macleay College’s advertising students were recently treated to a guest presentation from Chris Waterman from the Rubicon Project on the automation of advertising. Patrick Rutkowski reports.

Chris Waterman from the Rubicon Project with Patrick Rutkowski

After automation has revolutionised the accommodation (AirBnB), Taxi (UBER) and content broadcast (Facebook) sectors, the Rubicon Project is an industry leading technology company focused on automating the process of buying and selling online advertising space. Chris described how up to 127,000 auctions are performed on their platform each day. This process of buying online media space is completed in real time in only 0.80 milliseconds, which they are still trying to decrease. After about 30 seconds of posting and ad the space opens up to be re-bid.

This form of media purchasing is also highly personalised, with Rubicon selling space based on the type of user who is currently on a specific site. The company uses the profiles of users, determined though their browser cookies, to collect information about users’ search and user habits.

Chris believes that advertising agencies need to better adapt to the future of mobile media consumption. He described that marketers should start thinking mobile first, as it is the largest growing medium with an expected 66% of global digital spend of media budgets by 2018.

Although the process of Rubicon project appears to be highly effective by heavily streamlining the media and advertising space buying and selling it does have some drawbacks. The major one being as advertisers get better at targeting, consumers get better at resisting specified advertising. Adblocker software and cookie blockers on mobile devices are preventing the accurate targeting and consumption of online and mobile advertising, which actually facilitates for a lot of content creation on these sites. The Rubicon Project also face large competitors in Google and Facebook, both with a much larger reach in the industry and with large budgets to back them up.

Regardless of these hurdles Rubicon Project are still pushing to be on the forefront of advertising automation technology in order to best place online ads and communications in an accurately targeted and streamlined way.

By advertising student, Patrick Rutkowski

Macleay College has announced the line-up of speakers for Spring series of its AdSpeaks series of talks by high-ranking advertising professionals.

The Spring AdSpeaks programme features the following industry and thought leaders:

• Monday, October 19, 10:00 am: Natalie Krikowa, Creative Director Zenowa Films will be speaking on ‘Virtual & Augmented Reality – the Future of Experience’.

• Monday, November 9, 10:00 am: Chris Waterman, Sales Director – Seller Cloud, APAC at Rubicon Project will present on ‘The Automation of Advertising’.

• Monday, November 16, 10:00 am: Grant Flannery, Digital Planning and Social Media Director at The Monkeys on ‘Why would anyone give a f@*k? – adding genuine value to consumers’ lives’.

• Monday, November 30, 10:00 am: Alice Manners, CEO at the Interactive Advertising Bureau will feature ‘The Australian Interactive Advertising Landscape: State of the Industry and Future Trends’

Head of Advertising at Macleay, Ian Thomson, said “AdSpeaks offers both students and industry the opportunity to interact, in order to best address the talent gap in the emerging areas of the advertising and media sectors”.

With the launch of the 2-year Bachelor of Advertising and Media, Macleay College is building on its expertise offered through the long-standing Diploma of Advertising, which has seen many advertising professionals find their pathway into the industry.

Previous AdSpeaks speakers include co-creation team at Mindshare, Adam Ross and Sam Turley, UX director at The White Agency, Sam Court, executive creative director at The Hallway, Simon Lee, co-founder of For The People, Andy Wright, M&C Saatchi group Innovation director, Ben Cooper and Zenith Optimedia CIO, Aaron Michie.

Selected AdSpeaks talks are open to industry, students and the general public. If you would like to attend one of the above industry talks, email Ian Thomson at ithomson@macleay.edu.au

The Macleay College advertising students were recently lucky enough to have Sam Court, User Experience Director from The White Agency talk about the Rise of UX at our weekly Advertising Conference.

Firstly you may be asking, what the hell is UX?

UX is User Experience. This examines human behaviors, attitudes, emotions and habits to optimise the use of products, systems and/or services, and make the end-user’s interaction with the product, company and/or services as seamless and intuitive as possible.

What businesses sometimes fail to understand when using UX is, ‘You are not the user, and neither is the client’.  You must think like a user and respond like one when confronted with a problem or task. This is where some businesses fail when trying to fully engage their consumers. It’s not what the business wants from the users, but what the user wants from the business. UX can help create what’s right for the end user, particularly through empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. 

It was fascinating hearing about User Experience Design (UXD), and all the different techniques for solving problems, dealing with tasks as well as creating better user-interfaces. I particularly enjoyed the process of creating a persona (based on consumer research) and a user scenario. This helped to create understanding of the thought processes of the target consumer, as well as it imagine how they use the product – like a “day in the life”. The UX design process can mean you may come up with many different personas and scenarios, since no two people are alike and we all use products, internet and mobile experiences in different ways.

But where does someone start if they want to work in UX? Sam spoke about his own personal fascination with human behavior and love of logistical problem solving.

Sam’s final point was the idea of an invisible future. He spoke about how we started with many people and one computer, to one person and one computer, to now where we have one person with many devices. He went on about how interfaces have evolved from big monitors to portable touch screens to possibly even an invisible screen. He talked about the Internet of Things, how there are households where we can control everything electronic with a push of a button on a remote command on our phone, to how this is evolving into location sensitive devices that can respond  just by us walking in the front door (such as the lights turning on automatically). This way computers serve us.

I asked Sam afterwards if there is a possibility of us living in a Tony Stark-ish home, where we walk in and before we even think it, the house will function the way we want it to. He said there is a future out there with endless possibilities.

By Macleay advertising student, Nathan Sarmiento

THE HALLWAY’s Creative Director Simon Lee shares his journey with Macleay College’s advertising students.

It was relatively early on a Monday morning (10am is still early for advertising Creatives right?) when Macleay College’s advertising class was welcomed into THE HALLWAY’s conference room for a presentation by the executive creative director and joint owner Simon Lee.

It was my first time in an ad agency, and if things go well with my advertising studies, it certainly won’t be my last. It was immediately apparent that this was a cool place, filled with cool people. The open plan design, workroom walls of transparent plastic, and fleet of bikes make THE HALLWAY feel like a cross between a warehouse apartment, funky corporate office and a mod boutique. Simon and his business partner had gone to great effort to create an awesome work-space, and my intrigue about what he had to say was stirred, before he entered the room.

Simon’s Presentation “Following Siddhartha’s Lead – Finding an enlightened path through Adland” told of his own rich and varied journey into, out of, and returning to advertising, and drew comparisons to “Siddhartha”, Herman Hesse’s novel written in 1922, about an Indian man, who decides to leave behind his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination.

Siddhartha’s story starts in a Palace, as does Simon’s. His first position was at Chateau Mccann, the French HQ of McCann Erickson. In Siddhartha’s story the palace was filled with opulence and dancing girls. Simon’s castle featured supermodels, exotic lunches and whacky characters including a roller skating producer.

At this point in his career Simon’s definition of advertising was: “Express yourself creatively, and write yourself into the most exotic locations possible”. As a junior copywriter he penned the lines for one of his first  TV commercials; “We open on a white sand, palm fringed beach…” and before he knew it, he found himself in Cuba filming the commercial on the very white sand beach he had described. Simon described that his motivation at that point was about the cool world that advertising could create.

After 18 months at Mccann Erickson in Paris he suspected that there might be more to life. Just as Siddhartha left the palace to connect with the aesthetics of nature, Simon left Chateau McCann and moved to Chamonix in the French Alps to make snowboarder films. But after 12 months of “sameness” he realized that Advertising still presented him with some exciting and challenging career options.

On his return, Simon carried with him the thought that “satisfaction would come from seeing his creative work have an impact, commercially and socially”.

The next part of Siddhartha’s story saw him become a merchant. He focuses on fulfilling his earthly dreams, he meets a woman and works toward building a fulfilling life. Simon’s story mirrors this.

He moved to Australia and though his initial intention was to work at Mccann Erickson Australia, he took a position at Lavender, to develop a deep understanding of hard data and the science of advertising.

At that time, Simon’s definition of advertising evolved to: “Driving results for clients”. Simon tells us, however, that when single-mindedly focusing on results there is a danger of starving the work of creativity.

After the next few years in Australia and having created a number of award winning campaigns, Simon travelled to South America to make a feature documentary. At this point in Siddhartha’s story he leaves the fast-paced bustle of the city and returns to the river.

On completion of the doco, Simon again returned to the advertising world, but had now found a middle ground between two paths, his passion projects and his commercial career. Simon started his own agency defined his new approach to advertising as being “the business of Affective ideas; Ideas that move the way people feel, think, and behave for the commercial benefits of our clients.”

Simon’s fourth and final definition of Advertising that brings all of his life experience together, is thus best summarized as “Moving people, both literally and metaphorically.”

Simon finished Siddhartha’s story by describing his final station in life working as a ferryman, helping others’ cross a large river. Siddhartha reflects that the river is a strong metaphor for life, where the source and the estuary exist simultaneously, and his own role is to help other transverse it. Simon too has become a ferryman, helping others move between creativity and implementation, problems and solutions and passion and existentialism.

And Simon’s answer to the question “In 2015, would Siddhartha still be a simple man looking for enlightenment? Simon and I both hope the answer is yes.

By advertising student Bryan Sainsbury-Hore.

Scheduled to run throughout winter, Macleay College’s AdSpeaks series will be led by advertising industry professionals lined up to discuss the evolving sensibility in advertising; the emerging role of media; and the rise of User Experience Design.

The full speaker programme is:

• Monday, June 22, 10.00 am: Simon Lee, Executive Creative Director of THE HALLWAY, will present ‘Taking Siddartha’s Lead – finding an enlightened path through AdLand’. As the architect and leader of The Hallway’s creative offering Simon fuses his direct and mainstream experience with a passion for storytelling.

• Monday, July 13, 10.00 am: Sam Turley & Adam Ross, co-creation leads at MINDSHARE will be discussing ‘The uncomfortable truth about media in an attention economy’. By focussing on the 10% of the 70:20:10 innovation model and calling upon over 20 years combined experience in Strategic Planning, Turley and Ross will explore what drives clients to explore future areas for growth by embracing the uncomfortable.

• Monday, July 20, 10.30 am: Sam Court, UX Director at THE WHITE AGENCY, will present ‘The rise of UX and what this holds for the future’. Working with several of Australia’s and London’s finest digital agencies over the last 14 years, digital innovation has always been close to Sam’s heart. In particular Sam will be focusing on “designing for invisible interactions”.

Head of Advertising at Macleay, Ian Thomson, said that the range of topics that AdSpeaks brings to the table intend to be thought-provoking, not only for advertising students, but for industry professionals. “At Macleay, we like to position ourselves at the forefront of industry and provide an innovative approach to education. Through industry focused programs like AdSpeaks our students are exposed to what’s happening on the leading edge of advertising early on, and can hit the ground running when they enter the workplace,” said Thomson.

Previous AdSpeaks speakers have included M&C Saatchi Group Innovation Director Ben Cooper, Profero Creative Director Matthew Delprado, The White Agency strategist Grant Flannery , SBS Group Marketing Director Katherine Raskob, ZenithOptimedia CIO Aaron Michie and Leo Burnett Sydney Planning Director Caroline Ghatt.

Selected AdSpeaks talks are open to industry, students and public. If you would like to attend one of the above industry talks, email Ian Thomson at ithomson@macleay.edu.au

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