Imperial MBA student Mike Follett has just been awarded the $5,000 first place award in the advertising competition, Admap Prize 2013, for his essay called “Thinking in 3D.”
The essay, which addressed how brands can maximize profits and be a force for social good, will be published in the June issue of global advertising and marketing magazine Admap. There were lots of big names on the judging panel who read Follett’s essay including executives and leaders from Unilever, Ogilvy & Mather and Havas Media.
Here is part of an excerpt from Follett’s essay taken from Warc.com:
“Clients motivated solely by profit are a bad bet. They are unlikely to be in a position to pay performance related bonuses, and their difficulties hiring and retaining good talent at their end will make for a future filled with interminable conference calls that ultimately resolve nothing. As an outside agency, you will never change them, but they may change you. Don't work for them. Don't pitch for their business. Let the dead bury their dead.”
Follett’s career has been based in advertising for over ten years: he has worked as an account planner and a planning director at DDB London agency and then at DDB India, the “first fully integrated communications group” in India. Subsequently, he worked as a planning director at The Red Brick Road, an integrated advertising agency in London, before starting the Imperial MBA.
The Imperial MBA has been a positive career move for Follett, he said, because it has allowed him to learn more about himself and about other areas in business. Follett said he is convinced his Imperial experience affected his essay answer for the Admap Prize.
“If I had just carried on working as I was before, I would’ve given a very different answer than I gave after business school,” Follett said. “Business school sort of fills in the gap of whatever expertise you have built up in your career. It also gives you a chance to take a look at what you already know and how you view the world.”