6 Questions for Inspirational Women in Marketing | Part 10 | Agency Feature
At Setup, we love to amplify the stories and voices of those who make up the marketing community. As a part of that, we started a Women in Marketing series and a virtual women’s community “In this Dame and Age,” to provide a space for marketing women to network and share their journeys.
This particular segment features advice and stories from marketing agency leaders at Sparkloft Media, Three Five Two, and Dagger.
Featuring:
Q1: What inspired you to pursue a career in marketing?
Steele: I was fortunate to be one of the first families to have a home computer because of my father's job. I would spend hours in a Spiderman animation program, drawing, adding SFX and voice-over, adding animation, and forcing my family to watch my stories. This passion for the intersection of art, emerging technology, and storytelling has followed me my entire life.
With this background and perspective, I was able to teach traditional designers how to translate their work to digital platforms. When “apps” were created, they used design and art to drive the narrative for the user through the interface, and social media forever changed the way brands and humans interacted by engaging in two way creative rather than pushing out messages. Marketing is where I found my fellow people - people with a passion, curiosity, and drive to be forever exploring and tinkering.
Woodward: After college graduation, I took a year off to work in a law firm. I planned to go to law school and make a difference through policy…but my career goals changed not long after starting in the field and realizing it wasn’t for me.
As a tiny part of my job, I planned client appreciation events and golf tournaments, and developed marketing collateral. I loved the freedom to be creative and put my writing skills to use. I quickly discovered that I was far more passionate about these pieces of my job than the legal side of things.
Eventually, I joined a PR agency. I learned many aspects of agency life, and fell in love with the people and the pace of the work. I still focused on human problems, just not ones tied up in the legal process.
Heard: I wanted to be a lawyer originally, but after being in a political science live/study program freshman year of college, I realized law was more paperwork and reading and less Gloria Allred-style dramatic courtroom TV. I wanted to make a change and knew I was good at the art of influencing people, but wasn’t sure what career outside of politics made sense for me. Then, a very smart advisor suggested I apply for an internship at an ad agency. I agreed because of the free beer – but I ended up loving it. The biggest draw for me was, and still is, getting to flex so many different muscles across the spectrum of art and science, and working with very smart and caring people.
Q2: What were pivotal moments in your career that contributed to your success?
“We never know where life’s big moments will take us.”
Steele: Each job transition I made as technology continued to shape the behavior of humans helped me to expand my capabilities, navigate complex marketing problems, and find new creative outlets. My favorite pivotal moment was when I began being able to lead and direct my own video productions. There were some awful executions, so I would march into my creative director's office (John O'Connell who had many years of experience concepting and directing award-winning videos) and demand a breakdown of where I went wrong. He would talk to me about how to analyze films and work that you admire, how to evaluate the cameras, sequencing, and lighting. How every component from wardrobe and art direction down to the lens on the camera plays an important role in the final product and how it comes to life. He emphasized how to make sure an entire crew is executing your vision, and how to stick to your vision while evaluating the merits that everyone brings to the table.
Woodward: I’ve had incredible mentors who looked out for me or made critical introductions that opened new opportunities, but the most pivotal moment of my career came through a layoff. It was my lowest moment professionally, and I had no idea how much that event would change my life for the better.
I connected with Kacie Lett Gordon for coffee one morning about a month later, and she told me about her career at Three Five Two and the leadership team’s company vision. The company felt so different from agencies I had worked for in the past.
I joined Three Five Two to run Growth Marketing. I learned so much while in this department. Growth marketing accelerates learnings in pursuit of product-market fit through rapid test-and-learn experimentation. I had used many growth marketing methodologies in my startup life, but I’d never seen it done like Three Five Two’s strategy. The opportunity offered me a chance to learn something new and lead a bigger team, taking a seat at the leadership table.
I’ve since stepped into a role leading Growth for our agency, including managing our brand, marketing, and sales. I’ve had multiple new opportunities to impact our company’s strategy, and I would never have experienced any of this were it not for that layoff. We never know where life’s big moments will take us.
Heard: My career really opened up once I stopped thinking about it so linearly. When I was starting out, I wanted this perfect stair-step career that made complete sense on paper. I only applied for jobs that had an exact path from my previous role to the new one. In short, I was playing it very safely. One day I read a statistic we all know well by now: men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women only apply if they meet 100% of them. That stuck with me, and I started pushing myself to take bigger risks with the roles I went after and how much I was willing to learn on the fly. I let my career get a little messy at times - that led to two big defining moments: leaving the client side to become an agency leader, and taking a nearly year-long sabbatical in 2018.
Q3: Who is someone that helped you on your current path to becoming a marketing leader?
“Fear of failure holds a lot of women back because it takes us longer to get where we are, so the stakes feel higher; but you can’t evolve without failure, and that’s carried me a long way in my career.”
Steele: I was fortunate to have so many great mentors who gave me their time, lent their expertise, and took so many chances on me. The three most pivotal influences in my career came at varying stages.
When I first started in the industry, I had a mentor named Mike Tittle that sat next to me and with no hesitation helped me navigate and learn the ins and outs of the products, brand best practices, and navigating the industry. A couple of years in, I had an amazing Creative Director, Steve Kissing, who thought I had more to learn from the Brand Agency Lead model than he did, so he sent me to represent our company at massive Round Table creative reviews. I was a designer sitting amongst the CDs and ECDs of the world's largest agencies, learning to take critiques, defend the work, and how to really sell creative. And later in my career, I had a mentor, Arianna Howe, who spent countless hours helping me figure out how to start a creative department from scratch to match my vision and how to institute organizational change to have the behaviors and systems successfully adopted.
Woodward: Karlenne Trimble and Kyle Farnham were most influential in my career path, in shaping my marketing strategy acumen, and in exposing me to how to run an agency.
Karlenne stoked my interest in new business, and I worked closely with her, and then I worked closely with Kyle Farnham when he took over New Business for MSLGROUP. After Kyle stepped into the agency’s Managing Director role, I learned more about managing a P&L and got to work closely with our global New Business team.
I recently wrote about Karlenne on LinkedIn:
“No woman has ever worked harder to build the best companies, services, and partnerships. You elevated the thinking of our agency and drove MSL to be better. But the thing I learned the most from you was about employee engagement and keeping people closest to the work inspired and bought into the company vision. And how the vision had to mean something for it to be honest. It had to show up in the work.”
Karlenne’s approach always makes me think about my approach to leadership.
Heard: At least 10 women came to mind when I started thinking about the answer to this question, which makes me very lucky and privileged. I’ve had mentors in almost all of my jobs who have pushed me out of my comfort zone and to take charge of defining myself. The biggest thing they collectively taught me was to stop avoiding failure. Fear of failure holds a lot of women back because it takes us longer to get where we are, so the stakes feel higher; but you can’t evolve without failure, and that’s carried me a long way in my career.
Q4: Are there specific challenges you have faced as a woman in marketing, and how did you overcome them?
“Know your worth, don’t remain complacent, good companies do exist.”
Steele: Thankfully, the industry has been evolving and I am at a company that values and promotes the careers of females. I have been told point-blank in the past that I did not receive a competitive salary compared to a male colleague because he was "a real man" by the owner. I have been told that I would continue to receive the best projects as long as I continued to do the best work - and not report the behavior and misconduct of my male teams. I was denied promotions because I had to take care of my sick child. Each of these challenges is infuriating and taught me resilience and most importantly the value of surrounding yourself with humans and a workplace that values positive company culture. Know your worth, don't remain complacent, good companies do exist.
Woodward: I have always felt like I have something to prove since I started my marketing career later in life, but I’ve had incredible women mentors and leaders to model myself after. Because of that, I’ve advocated well for myself and haven’t experienced any overt challenges due to my gender. I’ve worked for supportive organizations that pay women well, respect prioritizing life over work, and offer many growth opportunities.
Heard: Advertising can be highly male-dominated. That culture has improved over the years (I’m fortunate to work somewhere that truly supports women) but it’s not perfect and it’s certainly not consistent. It can be really hard for women to speak up and be heard, especially women of color and in the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community.
Two things have consistently helped me take a seat at the table.
One, I started getting braver and claiming (and reclaiming when I had to) my ideas and my achievements, even though it was hard and uncomfortable. A mentor once told me I won’t get anywhere unless I talk about myself to other people at work. That was hard to start doing, but now I find a lot of power in advocating for myself and worrying less about how it comes across (and advocating for other women at work too - that’s big).
Two, I stopped trying to suppress my feminine energy at work. There are so many advantages to tapping into intuition and vulnerability in your job that contribute positively to being a successful leader.
Q5: What advice would you give to the next generation of women marketers?
Steele: Stay curious. Know your value. Surround yourself with creatives that lift you up. And don't stay silent if someone tears you down. Be strong, confront challenges, learn how to be politically smart while avoiding politics. Practice your skills - learn to give speeches. Don't be afraid of your failures but use them as a testing ground and embrace them with laughter. Hire and work with your friends. Find mentors.
Make Great Work.
Woodward: Understand how marketing goals align with business goals. Don’t just pursue vanity metrics. Develop acumen in data and analytics analysis and insights creation. The best marketers can analyze, interpret, develop insights from, and ultimately make recommendations based on their customer journey data.
Master an understanding of products and technology and their intersection with marketing. The more you understand cross-functional capabilities, the more likely you can eventually lead cross-functional teams or business divisions. This experience is vital for building capabilities that can ultimately steer you toward more prominent leadership positions.
Finally, build your tribe. I’ve had the same group of boss women cheering me on for 15+ years! Our successes are collectively shared as we cheer each other on and push each other to create impact. Keep lifting each other up.
Heard: Don’t shrink yourself at work to be likable. That approach may work in the short term but it doesn't help your career in the long run, and it only reinforces negative stereotypes about women at work. Not to say you shouldn’t be yourself, but take up space while doing it. Show up authentically even if it feels uncomfortable for you or other people. And take time off! Take care of yourself and your mental health. Marketing can be rigorous at times, and perspective goes a long way.
Q6: What emerging marketing trend excites you?
Steele: I am fascinated by the way new editing tools that make video accessible to the masses are influencing the aesthetic of the art we make for brands. The intersection of trend and brand and how to engage humans in campaigns, rather than marketing to/at them will fundamentally change the industry forever. AI, Meta, Social, and the buzz words we don't even know about yet - these platforms give voice and accessibility to all the interesting and niche audiences in an unprecedented way. Humans are savvier than ever about marketing, product, and brand, and their expectations for how we as marketers intersect with their lives have fundamentally shifted.
Woodward: Honestly, simple stuff like using intent data to target our best customers excites me. Being able to attribute marketing ROI excites me. Having all players working together across the customer lifecycle - tearing down the silos between sales, marketing, and delivery. We can have a much better understanding of the impact we are making on our clients’ businesses and the lives of their customers. More than ever, knowing and showing we’re creating human impact matters.
Heard: As I mentioned earlier, as someone intrigued by the power of influence, the rise in creators and creator culture is really interesting to me. Anyone with a mobile phone can be a creator and make content that marketers can engage with or use in their own marketing. It’s heavily influencing the way brands create advertising now, and it’s reflective of how users are capturing and sharing, how they produce, and where they show up. It’s changing the ad model in a big way.
Key takeaways:
No career path is linear - every step matters, and not all of it will work out as planned.
Put yourself in the position to learn more from mentors and develop cross-functional/cross-departmental skills.
Take breaks.
Don’t settle - your dream role or company is out there.
Take risks and learn from failure.
Fight for what you want!
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Our latest virtual Women’s event was themed “Marketing for Good - Turning Passions into Action,” where marketing leaders discussed the internal and external benefits of cause-driven marketing. Attendees included Setup Agency partners as well as members from established Brands at Cox, FIS, FedEx, Great Clips, Kimberly-Clark, The Home Depot, and more.