Why Junior Olomowewe is championing the role of strategy for young marketers
Future 50 inductee Junior Olomowewe is a senior strategist at VaynerMedia. He tells us how he forged a new path into the industry.
The senior strategist at VaynerMedia argues strategists lack a clear path into the marketing industry / Junior Olomowewe
The marketing industry has a recruitment problem. And when Junior Olomowewe was beginning his career, that problem manifested itself in a lack of knowledge about the roles strategists play in the industry. There is, he explains, a gap in marketing curriculums that did not speak to the full breadth of roles available in marketing.
He says: “I entered the industry through self-discovery. Where my strengths lie was connecting the dots between a lot of the people that were around me that were doing these amazing, creative things. [But] I remember working on some campaigns and not really knowing why these decisions were being made.”
Despite – and in part because of – that lack of a prescribed path into the industry, Olomowewe sought out mentorship from established practitioners. He believes that the consequences of not reaching out were a key motivator.
“It was the opportunity cost of me sitting in silence and not knowing what to do, [versus] actually going reaching out and taking that risk and asking someone, ’can I have some help?’ That’s how I kind of decided to keep pushing forward.”
The role of strategy
While he benefited from mentorship, Olomowewe says that community – the marketing community and the communities marketers engage with – has helped develop his practice.
“Ultimately, what we do as an industry [is] we serve people. And we just need to have a bigger reflection of the people. We serve different backgrounds and insights. That’s what makes a really great strategist.
“I think people over-intellectualize strategy. Sometimes you can get the biggest insights from just having a conversation with somebody. We want to work with big data, but some of the small nuances… you will never find that in the data. So going back to people as opposed to numbers is a way to really make a full, holistic campaign.”
He believes that while there is absolutely a role for analytics tools, his primary insights come from speaking directly to as many people as possible. That approach has led to some of his most effective work on campaigns for the African Cup of Nations, Edinburgh Fringe, Notting Hill Carnival and the Uefa Women’s Euros. In addition, he has produced exhibits for London’s Wellcome Collection and co-founded a company, Blanguage, a curation brand that showcases worldwide Black talent.
Personal stories
Of those campaigns, he says the opportunity lies in introducing the stories behind the individuals to a wider audience. Women’s football in particular offers marketers the chance to portray the heroism of people on the pitch in a new light, one without all the baggage around racism and homophobia that is present in the men’s game.
The work also allowed Olomowewe the chance to put a strategy together based on his personal insights in addition to those of the people to whom he spoke: “In terms of my own intersectionality... working on things like an African Cup of Nations was really great because it allowed me to explore my love of sports, and my being of Nigeria and British. It allowed me to really tap into the different versions of myself to bring out insights for a campaign that was great as well. And also Notting Hill Carnival was a great one, just for historically what it means to the City of London and people of the diaspora.”
Olomowewe says there is still work to be done to induct more young people into the industry in strategic roles. While the pathways for creatives are more clearly delineated, he says that strategy should be as prominent given its critical role within marketing.
Discover who has been named the best-emerging marketers in the industry in The Drum’s Future 50.