SS: What are the top functions of your department?

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PN: First off, we make sure our clients are happy. Internally, we have to make sure our team is functioning because when you have a happy team you’ll have happy clients! It’s important to be forward-thinking so you can be ahead of what’s coming on the client’s end. You must constantly be aware of the landscape.

 

 

SS: What brought you to the advertising industry?

 

PN: I started late! I have a biology degree and I thought I wanted to go into the health field, but decided I didn’t. I wanted to do something fun where I get to be around creative people, which is how I got into advertising! I had my own business for a while, which made me realize that I’m still very entrepreneurial, but I still have this creative side that I wanted to nourish. Then I realized that advertising would give me both worlds.

 

 

SS: How did you discover MAIP?

 

PN: I was reading Creativity Magazine or some other trade magazine and someone being interviewed mentioned MAIP! So I went online and looked it up realizing I was totally qualified for it. I also realized that it was due the next week and I needed to get all these referrals and things for it! I was calling professors and instructors to try and get everything together. That’s how I discovered MAIP!

 

 

SS: How has your experience in this industry with other experiences in your life?

 

PN: Like I said, I came into this industry a lot later so a lot of my mindset is related back to having my own business and being very entrepreneurial. So being in client services, you really have to care about the client’s budget and business. I think that’s something I bring to the table. I’m very sincere with my clients and I care about their businesses as if they’re my own.

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The successes of your account go down to your agency so you must be invested in it and actually care how you spend their budget. I think that’s something I definitely brought from past knowledge. Also, because of the path I was going on in college and high school I worked at a pharmacy and shadowed doctors. Those little things help me understand things that I could bring to the table.

 

Life experience is very important! I’m also a first-generation Vietnamese person and I bring that diversity to the table too. You need people from different backgrounds and different upbringings to come in and question things that we all think we already know. All the places you’ve lived and experiences you’ve gathered build up and contribute to who you are as a person, which is really important in advertising because it needs the diversity to come up with big and good ideas.

 

 

SS: What has been your most difficult experience in advertising? 

 

PN: Learning to deal with difficult clients is hard because I’m really passionate about my work and when I see problems where the client isn’t happy, I have to ask myself how to be honest with the situation and accept it.

You learn that with time! When you first start out, you think it’s the end of the world, but as you become a stronger account person then you realize that there’s ways to resolve it and there’s courageous conversations you’ll have to have with both the client and internal team.

 

 

SS: What has been the most gratifying experience in this industry? 

 

PN: When you get clients that are so happy with your work! When both your team and client are happy, it makes you happy because you know you contributed to that.

 

 

SS: What does advertising mean to you? 

 

PN: Advertising is educating people! 

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