Wavemaker’s group director Peter Andrew recently spent a fortnight in Los Angeles as part of the agency’s talent exchange program, Provocative Pioneers. Here, he says that the experience made him better at his job — though it sadly didn’t land him a spot on the silver screen.
I spent the last two weeks of April immersed in the Los Angeles office of Wavemaker. I was there as part of Wavemaker’s unique global talent exchange and knowledge-sharing program, Provocative Pioneers, to spend time with our Wavemaker US and Paramount teams.
Two weeks earlier, Wavemaker Sydney played host to Tatiana Patrón and Missie Saroyan of the Wavemaker North America team. When they were in town, B&T had a good chat with them about koalas and everything they learnt Down Under.
One of the great things about being part of a global network is the ability to connect with colleagues internationally. While we can do that virtually any day of the week, the aim of Provocative Pioneers is to bring it to life in person and enhance collaboration, inspiration and connection between Wavemaker’s offices around the world – ultimately elevating global client knowledge.
Sounds nice on paper, but what was it really like? Well, it was even better!
Growth on steroids
I arrived in LA with three key goals: to immerse myself in the local Wavemaker team, meet with the local clients, and experience Paramount in the epicentre of storytelling. (And a sneaky, perhaps a little unrealistic, fourth goal of becoming a Hollywood star.)
Walking around Paramount Studios was magical and – I’m not ashamed to admit – an emotional experience for me. I was already passionate about the work I’m privileged to create with Paramount, but this kind of inspiration and motivation has propelled me to a whole new level of brand loyalty.
Overall, the impact of this trip on my personal growth has been profound. I was exposed to incredibly talented people at the top of their game, challenging me to identify areas I can improve in my own skills and ways of working, to help me achieve my career goals.
Inspired to shake things up
This year, I clock up five years of working on the Paramount business in Australia. I love the brand, I love the entertainment category and the challenge of finding new and impactful ways to connect with audiences.
The partnership between Paramount and Wavemaker Australia is unique in that we sit across all aspects of the business – theatrical, streaming, channels and home entertainment. This allows us to bring all lines of business closer together and leverage opportunities across data and strategy sharing, marketplace clout, and storytelling with impact.
Getting to spend quality time with the US teams helped me identify ways in which we can improve our process here in Australia. My team and I are already reassessing our day-to-day operations and zeroing in on everything – from whether our channel mix is correct to digging deeper on creative and data opportunities – with the ultimate goal of pushing ourselves to think differently.
It’s not overkill to say that thanks to Provocative Pioneers, I’ve been inspired to shake up the way we do things here in Australia.
Ditto for greater collaboration with our US counterparts. It’s one of the aims of the program and I’m now speaking to the team in LA every second day. We’re already producing better work as a result.
Australia is punching above its weight
An unexpected benefit of the Provocative Pioneers program was that it opened my eyes to how the rest of the world views Australia.
It can be easy to become complacent, but Australia excels in collaborative ways of working, finding synergies and delivering value to our clients. I was really proud to see the high standards of strategic media thinking and execution we have here at home, through the eyes of my global teammates. Our work is held up as world-leading and other markets, including the US, are eager to learn from us.
That’s incredibly motivating in our quest to “break the model” by pushing ourselves, our clients and our media partners to keep doing better.
Sometimes it can take going around the world to see what you have close to home. While I failed to find stardom in Hollywood, I came back from LA feeling grateful, inspired and proud of the work we do in Australia – and energised to drive it forward.
