adobo magazine sits down with marketing and media moguls Jean Lander Agor and Isabelle Turpault for a quick Q&A.
Jean Lander Agor
Associate Director, Media Strategy & Creatives
AdSpark, Inc.
Describe your role in AdSpark?
I’m the Associate Director for Media Strategy & Creatives. I basically manage four different teams: Media Strategy and Creatives (further divided to Social, Creative Strategy, and Design). It’s an unconventional setup but it actually makes sense as creatives and media in digital really have to work closely together, from both a paid and an owned standpoint, to make sure that integration is as seamless as possible.
Any skill you faked till you made it?
Leading a big team. When I joined AdSpark, we were just a small group under another then subsidiary of Globe. It was me and two designers. I was still very much focused on creative development. As the company grew bigger, so did the team. But just a little more than a year ago, I also took over Social and Media Strategy. I stepped up to learn more, because coming from a creative and marketing background, media strategy involved a more technical understanding of digital (more acronyms to understand than just PNG and HTML5). It’s a continuous learning cycle: assessing principles that still make sense—keeping what is still relevant and letting go of what is antiquated, understanding new approaches (there are subtle differences in mentoring a media strategist compared to a creative), and applying what is best to address an objective.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Well, aside from unrequited love, riding public transportation. Not to sound elitist, and take out the traffic congestion, there’s always something interesting to observe: what people wear, what do people listen to, what (and who) they talk about. It’s sometimes better than getting stuck behind the wheel listening to the same Spotify playlists.
Brief history of your career in the industry
I have always been in digital marketing from day one of my career. I started out as a copywriter for Havoc Digital (now acquired), and prior to joining AdSpark, I was handling digital marketing for Pizza Hut Philippines. I started from an agency, then shifted to the brand side, and back to an agency-like setup again. In every jump, I was consistently refining my knowledge in a variety of capacities.
What do you consider the most underrated quality in your field?
Learning. There’s always something new to learn and refine in digital, specially in creatives. There’s always a better design, a better layout, a more efficient way of creating assets, a new format to explore, a new content platform to play around with. What made sense last week, might not be applicable this week.
Isabelle Turpault
Head of Digital
Publicis One Media
Describe your role?
I am with Publicis One. I oversee digital and content across the 4 media agencies present within the group, i.e., Zenith, Blue 449 (formerly Optimedia), Starcom and Spark (formerly Mediavest).
What digital campaign do you think best promotes innovation in media?
One of my all-time favorites is the British Airways “Magic of Flying” campaign centered around the Piccadilly Circus billboard featuring a kid pointing to a plane in the sky and giving its flight info. It represents the best of media and creativity and is one of the first data led campaigns. The construct is perfect: an iconic location, an avant-guard execution and a data backend that blends online and offline into a beautiful brand experience.
Who is your favorite fictional character?
I am not sure if he is my favorite per se but I would say that the fictional character that has drawn the most interest from me recently is Frank Underwood from House of Cards. I am a fan of Kevin Spacey in the first place and I think that Netflix has reinvented story writing in a way that keeps audiences asking for more.
What talent do you most want to have?
I would love to be able to speed-read. With the current information deluge, there is so much to learn out there, be it for work or leisure. It would be nice to go through the process faster.
What’s one thing most people don’t yet know about you?
I finally decided to take some much-needed Tagalog lessons…
This article was published in the adobo magazine Trends 2018 issue.
