David Steel
Creative Director, Vivo Group
Written by Carly Rossi on 2010-10-08
Added to the BMM in 2010, Vivo Group is a prominent digital agency based in Brisbane servicing an Australia-wide market. As Vivo is categorised in both Media Services and New Media listings, an interview with its Creative Director, David Steel gives a perspective of the industry that will interest a great deal of media enthusiasts, and benefit prospective media players significantly with his insight.
Describe a typical day in your role:
Each day varies greatly, but below are some common tasks that find their way into my day. These are basically the aspects that I’m responsible for within Vivo Group:
Working up creative concepts for projects, developing ideas to grow the business, identifying and meeting with key business partners, staying in touch with clients, working with the team to ensure all projects are on track (from both a time and creative point of view).
What is the best and worst part of your job?
Best part: Completing a great project for a client, and having them refer us on.
Worst part: My inbox every morning
If you had to give one piece of advice to a professional entering the Advertising, Media and Marketing industry, what would it be?
Be creative, think outside the box, and speak up if you think you have a great idea.
What challenges (if any), does your company face in regards to new media technologies?
One of the hardest challenges is finding time to keep on top of new technologies. Everyone who works at Vivo Group has a keen interest here, so knowledge is generally shared throughout the team in general discussions. In addition to that would be the task of understanding how new media technologies can best be utilised and then convincing clients on how they can be incorporated (where appropriate, and in a meaningful way) into their campaign.
What has been your most exciting project to work on at Vivo thus far?
We are currently working on a large website for an advertising agency’s client where we get to develop an online shopping cart for a national company – and having this interface with a variety of back-end systems to track orders, process payments and so on.
At the other end of the spectrum, we had a great time developing slapapollie.com as it allowed us to really test out our skills in launching another successful viral game/campaign through the use of social media.
What does your company look for in a team member?
Given the nature of our company, all staff members have to be team players to ensure everyone contributes equally to each project. A team player should be social, willing to help others, and always work with (not against) the team to ensure every project we deliver for our clients is above their expectations.
What can we expect to see from Vivo/the marketing industry in the next 12 months?
An increase in businesses utilising social media, other digital companies embracing/experimenting with HTML5 to deliver dynamic online experiences for users… and we’ll probably see Google acquire a few more companies.