Interview with Nicci Motiang

With a rich career that stemmed from her first advertising position in media strategy at a big London agency before heading off to Australia to work out there. Nicci now calls Edinburgh home. Her days at The Union are spent planning and conducting research and strategy projects for clients such as The Scottish Government, Sterling Furniture and ScotRail.

It seems in another life you were once a media strategist, a German teacher a crisis line counsellor and a journalist. How and why did you make the move into advertising and what’s kept you there?

I love ideas, they make my brain fizz and feel happy! Hence advertising and why I’ve kept doing it. At university, a chap from Saatchi came and did a great job selling advertising as a career - then said there were no jobs! For me, that was like a red rag to a bull. If someone tells me I can’t do something I want to, I’ll usually find a way… I temped as a PA in several London agencies to steal a march on the competition for graduate jobs with first-hand knowledge of how agencies work (this was pre-Google!).

The Union have some pretty big clients. How does your job role fit with their needs?

Our client needs vary enormously, as do the solutions. It might be a beautiful film, a super useful website or a VR experience. My job is to ensure we keep the user at the heart of it all. The planning team work to provide evidence and inspiration from a wide range of fields to our brilliant creatives and lovely clients. Insight can be elusive at times – often that involves legwork! We’ve been inside people’s fridges, breweries and construction sites. Whatever it takes.

You graduated in Modern Languages, Social and Political Sciences and Psychology. What skills do you think you draw on most on an average day?

I’ve done the odd German translation when one was urgently needed, but usually it’s Psychology that comes in most handy as it offers different models for understanding human behaviour. That’s useful for everything from working with colleagues to understanding audiences/ users to trying to parent better! My dissertation was on Deception (please don’t print that!).

Technology in advertising is ever evolving, how do you make sure you’re up to date with all things digital?

It is impossible for any one person to keep up to date with all things digital – technology is evolving at such a crackling pace. However, we work to explore and build the technologies that work for our business and our clients. It’s solid teamwork – developers, project managers, planners and designers all contribute their own passions and areas of expertise. I have blogs and updates I like to read for inspiration (like Faris and Springwise) and I always want to know what’s going on at SXSW – luckily the very eloquent Nigel Gwilliam at the IPA distills that for us. I’ve learned to code a little to have a better understanding of what we’re actually asking our awesome developers to do!

What’s the fundamentals of a good social media strategy?

My experience is that there’s no substitute for knowing your users. For social media, that involves listening widely and well before joining the conversation (as a brand). This helps inform engaging content territories and tone of voice which allows brands to better connect with people.

What should marketers be paying most attention to at the moment?

It’s very hard to pick just one thing, but I’m a huge advocate of using Behavioural Economics to create better products and communications – Britain is doing a great job of exporting this field to the world. I use the EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Simple, Timely) almost every day at work.

Which living person do you most admire?

My mum, Dr Hellen Small, former professional dancer and psychiatrist. She took on medicine as a second career, shows me how to be a good mum and has made a difference in the lives of people living with mental illness.

Tickets are still available for Inspiring Planning on May 17. 

Nicci on Twitter @unionagency @NicciMotiang