Nike: “Just Do It”; Avis: “We Try Harder”; Kay Jewelers: “Every Kiss Begins with Kay”. I’d like to think these well-known ad campaigns subconsciously inspired me to pursue a career in marketing. However, if I am honest, I am probably reaching to append a concrete reason as to how I came to work in the field of marketing.
Like many others, I was unsure as to what I wanted to do with my life when entering college. As a kid, my career goals centered around becoming a professional surfer, skater, or baseball player. By the time I was a teen, I had to face the harsh reality that many others do, and I realized my passion and enjoyment for these things didn’t outweigh my mediocre performance in each. In other words, I couldn’t “Just Do It”. ;)
As I entered college, I noticed that my strengths centered around strategic thinking, data analysis, and entrepreneurship. This led me to set my sights on a business degree. However, I didn’t want to lose my creative side. While I’ve never been a great artist, I’ve always enjoyed creative thinking and the work of graphic designers, musicians and other art creators. For me, the natural solution was to major in Marketing which is a harmonious combination of black and white business metrics and the freedom of the creative process.
My Path to Human
After learning the philosophies of Marketing at school and picking up some real world experience at different internships, I honed my focus on the area of digital marketing. I was able to connect with a guest speaker from my Digital Advertising 101 class during my senior year. He worked at a digital ad agency and we began to meet weekly to discuss the field and what I would need to do in order to get my foot in the door. After a few months, a role opened up at his agency and I was able to apply and I was offered the job! I started my career at the agency in Santa Monica, California.
From there, I worked with a variety of clients across verticals such as eCommerce, Auto, Pharmaceuticals, Entertainment and CPG. We developed strategies and ran full-funnel digital campaigns across Search, Social, Native, Digital Out of Home, and Programmatic channels based on the client’s KPIs and business goals. The exposure to such a wide variety of clients allowed me to learn a lot very quickly. I gained cross-channel knowledge about specific digital marketing needs and executions.
I left the agency to head up the digital marketing team at a Non-Profit organization. This role gave me the opportunity to further expand my digital marketing tool set from just advertising to email marketing, SEO, social media and CRMs. I was also able to improve my business and analytical knowledge as I was responsible for the entire customer experience and the budgets and overhead needed to grow the organization. I loved using my career in a way that resulted in helping others throughout the world. The experience was a major blessing.
While I loved my time at the non-profit, I always had a desire to get back to working with clients. I wanted to be on the cutting edge of the digital marketing industry where I could continue to grow and learn in this ever-changing field. This led me to Human! Today, I’m proud to be the newest member of the Human Marketing team as a Strategic Consultant on the Customer Success team! I was blown away by the company culture and focus on going above and beyond for their clients. I’m excited to serve as a strategic tool for clients and help them achieve the best results for their business.
On a personal note, when I am not head down working, I enjoy spending time with my wife and our Mini Golden Retriever, Marley. I have a dry sense of humor and I am incurably optimistic. I enjoy surfing, snowboarding, and camping. I love great music, good food, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Overall, I like to live life to the fullest!
