PEOPLE
05
Advertising Moves Fast:
I want to support others and help them shine.
While job hunting as a university student, I looked back on my life and thought about the times I felt motivated. My high school club activities came to mind. I was a member of the soccer club, and there was a time when I could not practice with my team due to an injury. After much thought, I decided to take on the role of team manager. At the time, I remember having a calling to work where I could contribute to people’s growth. I began aspiring for a career where my support would make others shine.
My first job after graduating was working as a banker who supported businesses. It gave me experience providing finance-related support, but I increasingly wished to get involved in more upstream business processes. Therefore, I changed careers and joined Dentsu Runway.
Since joining the company, I have been working in a client-facing position as an account executive. I take care of everything from strategy to media planning and buying, primarily focusing on foreign clients. Many colleagues in my department have extensive international experience. During university, I was an active member of a group that supported foreign exchange students, so my interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity make me good at directly communicating with foreigners.
Dentsu Runway is filled with multitasking professionals. Many of us are knowledgeable about media and creative work in addition to account management. We each have our areas of expertise, which is a great strength. Since I used to work at a bank, I am often asked to help with tasks involving complex numbers.
Senior colleagues have shown me that a presentation is “a present.”
Today, I am mostly in charge of clients in the sports and beverage industries. Since joining the company, I have learned that when communicating with foreign clients, it is vital to get the point across clearly and to actively make suggestions.
For example, when we create PowerPoint slides, we do not pack them with information, as this decreases their effectiveness. The seniors in my department taught me to deliver points concisely with just one message per slide. Watching my seniors helped me realize that a presentation is “a present.” Even today, as we continue to work together, I am learning about ways to communicate more effectively with foreign clients.
Once, a client tasked us with a sports-related project to be implemented during the peak season and entrusted us with a large budget. There were many sports fans on our team, including myself. We all used our strengths to analyze the target and competition and propose several effective methods. Achieving the client’s desired result and gaining the valuable experience of contributing to their growth while using our expertise felt very rewarding.
Researching clients’ needs is a highly complex task. Nevertheless, I once gave a presentation that had to be prepared in just two weeks. It was my first time in a leadership role within my team. We split the work between members, had several meetings to perfect our strategy, and narrowly met the two-week deadline. It was hard work, but I think it was a great experience.
Advertising is a dynamic industry with so much to learn.
After joining the company, I realized how broad the range of work is in advertising. Although I work as an account executive, my responsibilities extend far beyond that. I receive a variety of orders from clients. We often use the term "out-of-the-box thinking." In many cases, we must come up with new ideas that we have never tried before. That is the real thrill of the advertising business: coming up with solutions based on our clients’ strengths while incorporating what we ourselves would like to do.
In my job at the bank, everything was done with excessive caution. Now, I get to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment. I believe that multitasking can increase efficiency, helping us deliver clients’ projects with unparalleled speed.
My goal is to gain deeper insights into all the different aspects of marketing. To that end, I am reading marketing books, taking part in a study group that invites external speakers to the company to improve media literacy, and attending a copywriter training program through the skill-building support system included in the company’s education program. Because I often work on site with creative staff, I study relevant material and read colleagues’ proposals for reference. In any case, I have so much to learn. Going forward, I want to work with dedication, taking on a broad perspective and multitasking even more.