Straight Outta Stirling

Kat Stark • 9th Jan 2018

I’m now part of a small, agile team that do award-winning work. Great, right? The fact that I now have first-hand insight into the cutting-edge of all things paid media makes it even better – something I know my coursemates would have given a limb for! It was clear from the off that The Lane had a growing number of digital media clients – a lot of them with a focus on social media, an area I was keen to get my teeth into.

Naturally, when I got the chance to visit Facebook HQ in Dublin for their Agency Day, I jumped at the offer. I will admit that it was slightly daunting when I realised I’d be mingling with seasoned professionals from across Europe – but the breadth and experience in paid media represented on the day was too much of a learning opportunity to shy away from. When I mentioned I had only graduated from University in summer and started working in June, people were surprised I’d been given the opportunity to attend the event in my first few months of work – thanks again Barry!

It was so exciting to be in a room full of 200 people who represented such a wide variety of skills, who all seemed to know the platform inside out, and find out more about how they went about finding new formats to meet their client’s objectives.

That’s not to mention the speakers. First up we heard from Ian Edwards, Head of Strategy, who set out the 3 trends we saw with Facebook advertising in 2017. He defined them as:

Content is diversifying – Brands need to provide permanent, ephemeral and live content to keep themselves relevant.
Speed – People view 300 posts on average per day – that’s equivalent to scrolling the height of Big Ben! Therefore keeping ads eye-catching is imperative.
Purchase intent – Don’t wait for it, Create it.

Next up was Lucy Jameson, who gave an inspiring account of her career in advertising. She discussed how in the early 90s a third of people preferred TV ads to the actual programme! She stressed the importance of doing good work that you believe in. For her, this came from the experience of leaving her CEO role at Grey London to become an intern at Facebook for a year to then co-founding her very own a start-up agency.

Before starting at Lane Media, I only viewed Facebook through the eyes of a consumer, so it wasn’t immediately obvious to me exactly how I was being targeted by brands. Not anymore. I see (scroll?) through a whole new lens now and can see the subtleties of how things like my demographic, interests and personal information influence the content I’m served. Since I began here, I’ve had the chance to put that knowledge to the test; I’ve worked across many clients and broadened my scope from optimising and analysing campaigns on Facebook to other social platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

My time at Lane Media has been a hugely important learning experience for me, and I can’t wait to find out what 2018’s got in store.

Kat Stark

Digital Media Executive

Lane Media