Digital agency hires mathematician with no advertising experience
Jones and Nelsone
Digital brand strategy agency New Republique has hired someone with a mathematics background who has never worked in advertising.
Mark Nelsone joins the agency as a data planning director.
Also new to the agency is Andrew Jones as creative director. Jones was most recently a freelance digital art director at The White Agency.
The twin signing is part of the agency’s strategy of bringing “magic and logic” together, according to a press release.
“Mark comes from a traditional mathematical background and has never worked in advertising. We believe this is the only way we will grow our industry, by bringing new fresh thinking and prespective into our work,” the agency’s boss Nima Yassini said.
“Too long have we separated data and creative, these two hires will help us re-define what we are calling internally, empirical creativity.”
In November last year, New Republique hired former Smart co-creative director Dan Gregory as creative chairman.
As much as I’d like to think it’s a good idea, I’ve got some reservations… I’ve seen it before (in a previous job), and the poor guy we had hired struggled because of a clear lack of understanding of the industry we are in. Hopefully the agency will provide him with ongoing training. Good luck to you Mark!
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If anything, he will be able to help everybody cheat on their tax returns.
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Keith – I never thought of that when we hired him. Thanks for the thought!
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Cool . . . anyone want to hire an avant-garde trend prophet with no ad agency experience ??
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Cool . . .
anyone want to hire an avant-garde trend prophet with no ad agency experience ??
who can bring fresh thinking AND correct spelling into focus.
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A big issue for many traditional agencies is that they have not been recruiting the right type and combination of talent and experience required both now and in the future. I believe this trend of bringing new and alternatively/better skilled people into the industry will not only continue, but accelerate.
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Col Sanders dare i say your hire was probably bamboozled and eventually disillusioned by the lack of numeracy and high bullshit quotient in ‘our’ industry
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How zany!!
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Col love to hear your thoughts. Drop us a line
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1. He’s data planning director, not head of creative
2. Advertising ain’t rocket surgery.
3. Everybody relax.
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I’m sure the industry will turn him on to the dark side soon enough:
Week 1 “Look just tell the client that the data is absolute and we won’t be moved on our position”
Week 2 “Yeah well since we already have the giant chicken suit and no budget we might as well run with it. Goes against the data mind”
Week 10 “Well we have no data for the last month so let’s fudge some just below industry benchmarks and get off to the pub”.
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You guys are nuts. Does he specialise in Chao’s Theory?
I’m sure I threw an orange at Mark once back at school….
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Hiring a math genius will have plusses and minuses. He’ll enter an element of research into the equation, which is positive for the industry. But, how will he measure up to the x factor that often equates to sales?
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We hired rain man so when some drops a pack of skittles he can guess the number that fell out of the packet.
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A maths geek saved the world from aliens in Independence Day.
A maths geek saved the world from dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (same actor by the way)
A maths geek regularly solved crimes for the FBI in Numbers.
A maths geek helped Brad Pitt kick major league arse in Moneyball.
Maths geeks who come into situations knowing nothing other than their beautiful math always outshine the experts. So I think this is a pretty low-risk hire to be honest.
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@The Fence He’s the data planning director
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Congrats Mark. We’ve just hired our first few math’s PHDs. Already we are seeing some new thinking and new product role outs as a result. A wider breath of skills in our industry is a great thing.
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Yep … someone’s seen the movie Money Ball ;b
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How great is it that we enjoy talking about a f@@#king mathematician rather than a creative.
I’d love to see the mathematician come up with a brilliant creative idea and sell it….
This ain’t Jurassic Park ladies
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And Mark, if you feel at any stage you need training in digital creative, look no further than Miami Ad School Sydney…..
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Awesome! Love the idea and I think its great that a company has hired someone who doesn’t necessarily tick the bullsh!t generic boxes of a job spec sheet. Andrew is awesome too and with their powers combined I am sure they will make good stuff!
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A good move.
The concept that “you can only work in the advertising industry if you have advertising industry experience” is a logical impossibility.
Next I hope to see the ad industry hire people with a real world understanding of industry and/or government.
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A very smart move – advertising is not just about being creative with copy, it’s also about being creative with data and analytics.
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This is actually a smart move, considering all the data that social media is creating.
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Throwing the gender divide into the debate here a bit . . . men are more likely to have a brain predisposed to analysis, lists, one-thoughtness, number, data etc. etc.That is good for onwardness and a desire for excellence.
Women on the other hand do have smaller brains but use both hemispheres in synchronicity, economically firing back and forth across The Corpus Callosum; therefore making better all-rounders, flexible of thought, multi-tasking etc. etc. That is good for colour, text, balance and team-working.
There are a few (percentage-wise) exceptional people who have symmetrical equalised brain hemispheres who are capable of both types of thought simultaneously, thus manufacturing a third . . Creativity.
Unfortunately the downside is that it takes one to know one, so generally they are disregarded by the community as freaks. Eheu!
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Chin up Mark, This is just creatives being shaken out of their trees. They dont even know what the dont know. This is smart move, congratulations!
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