Women In Media Profile: Pandora’s Nicole McInnes

To celebrate the launch of B&T’s Women In Media Awards today and to coincide with the call for nominations, over the coming weeks B&T will be featuring profiles of women in the industry who are making their marks on the media and marketing landscape through hard work, innovation and sheer talent. Today, B&T talks to Nicole McInnes, director – marketing ANZ, Pandora internet radio.

I think that we might be going back to Mad Men days where everything has to be combined to be more efficient… Because the advertising market is shrinking there are efficient channels. People are able to spend less and reach more.

I call myself a ‘career schizophrenic’… At uni, life drawing class could be right next to an mechanical engineering class so I graduated pretty confused. From coding 3D renderings to sketching someone’s willy, to materials science, to marketing…it was no surprise that my career followed suit.

I didn’t become an industrial designer because I was fearful I would kill someone… If you’re an architect or a product designer and you get one calculation wrong…! So I took my creativity and 3D spatial understanding into advertising where no one’s life is in danger. A few egos, maybe, but usually no one dies.

Pandora is ruled by digital but it’s the search and mobile at the moment that are the most efficient… We attribute the huffing about saying which is efficient as we can’t track the effect of other channels on the whole media mix. I’m a big believer in that the top line makes the direct response line more efficient. I learnt that at Dell because we did see it with the way we tracked everything in the olden days without any digital tracking in place with the telephone numbers and vanity URLs that you could really see where their TV ad ran back then what effect it would have online. I still think to a lesser degree maybe with TV. Other channels do have an effect on the full efficiency of direct channels. We can’t just discount them.

I left advertising around the time Neil French got fired for being derogatory about women in advertising and why they’re not in creative departments… He got sacked but said what a lot of the guys in the Australian industry thought.

I still struggle with guilt as a mum… I question my choices. You’ve got to keep checking that you’re doing the right thing by yourself and your family. It’s corny but I truly believe, ‘happy mum, happy kids.’

The poor kids wouldn’t eat if I was in charge by myself… My husband is really hands on. He’s almost OCD. I think he’s got an empty inbox. Do you know anybody who has an empty inbox? That gives you a picture of how organized he is!

I get really into my job and often tell myself if it goes into an unhealthy phase I’ve got to pull back a bit… If you end up loving your job or the product that you’re marketing you can get obsessed and lose sight of the fact work is only one part of your life.

I’d was at Dell when I was awarded the Cannes Lion for the work I’d done at Ogilvy… I didn’t even know I’d won and when I walked into our weekly DDB meeting they applauded me and handed me a bottle of champagne. An amazing moment.

I’m marketing a product that’s contributing to the zeitgeist of the world… I love that Pandora is online and interconnected with people’s social media and sharing and opinions. It’s available at any point not interrupting but just making their life more enjoyable.

I’m inspired by Google’s Lucinda Barlow… I saw her talking at a B&T ADMA week andasked you stay inspired in marketing when everyone keeps looking at the bottom line? Her answer was, ‘always make sure you’re marketing something that’s worthy and ready’. She made me even more determined to find a product I truly believed in.

And make sure you enter our Women in Media Awards, or nominate a colleague, here!

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