Media industry’s youngest and brightest gather at Verizon Media’s inaugural Brand Love Academy

Verizon Media recently brought together 50 creative, media and marketing rising stars from across Australia and New Zealand for the inaugural Brand Love Academy event.

Held in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, the hand-picked future leaders listened and learnt from some of the world’s best business speakers at an event focusing on personal brand building, future-proofing careers and brain-training for a high performance life.

Created as a part of Verizon Media’s company-wide commitment to invest in talent whilst adding value to the future of the industry, Brand Love Academy featured an array of inspiring speakers including Atlassian’s workplace futurist, Dominic Price, co-founder of Vitae.Coach, Shelley Laslett, co-founder of The Impossible Institute, Dan Gregory and Verizon Media’s very own head of brand and RYOT, Zoe Cocker and head of data and targeting, Dan Richardson.

Attendees on the day came from across a spectrum of agencies and brands including: MediaCom ANZ, Wavemaker ANZ, Kiwibank, Amnet, VMLY&R (PHD), Spark Foundry, Ikon, Starcom, CHE Proximity, OMD, Initiative, Mindshare, PHD, Audience360, Carat, MediaLab, Bohemia Group, REA Group, Cadreon, UM and Havas Media.

More than just a conference, the Brand Love Academy class of 2019 were able to put their new knowledge to the test in a final pitch-off for Musicians Making a Difference (MMAD), one of Verizon Media’s not-for-profit partners through their gold partnership with UnLtd.

The brief tasked teams with creating and promoting a fundraiser for MMAD, with the winning team scoring the opportunity to go behind the scenes at Advertising Week in New York and meet Verizon Media’s senior executives.

After a tense judging session, the winning team of Caitlin Hess from Ikon, Maia Trepa from Carat, Andrew Clift from UM, Alana Adair from Mindshare and Justine Baloh from Mediacom pipped the competition with their idea to create a MMAD 2-5-1 camp for CEOs. Two days, five disciplines and one shot to brainstorm ways their organisations can reach their full potential to make a difference. MMAD have already started production of the fundraiser, with three CEOs at Brand Love Academy expressing interest in buying tickets to the camp.

Says Paul Sigaloff, MD, Verizon Media ANZ: “Our first year of Brand Love Academy exceeded expectations, the positive energy in the room was palpable which reinforced why Verizon Media invests heavily in our industry’s talent. We’ve given young talent the opportunity to access vital tools and information they may not have learnt until later in their careers.

“We believe in the power of people and as our industry continues to evolve, the importance of retaining and investing in top talent is a key issue facing all businesses, from brand marketers to agencies. Brand Love Academy provides a real opportunity to give something back to the industry, whilst having some fun along the way.”

Says Dominic Price, workplace futurist at Atlassian: “The future of work is all about evolving the way you work as a human and finding ways of connecting with other people to create infinite possibilities. It’s important to challenge those norms and find the things that you can stop doing, and find the things you can try, experience and explore to be the best version of yourself everyday.”

Says Justine Baloh, pitch winner and digital performance executive at Mediacom: “Our team started with a complicated web of ideas but following the advice from Dan Gregory, we focused on the ‘why’ and managed to narrow down to one simple idea that spoke to the brief.

“Having only one hour to develop a pitch and 5 minutes to present, we were zoned in on giving our all to the task at hand. We’re a bit shell-shocked about winning this amazing opportunity to continue learning thanks to Verizon Media.”