Ad Chat - Laura Jordan Bambach

This week we chat with Laura Jordan Bambach, the executive creative director at LBi, seen on twitter as @laurajaybee. She's up for election as a D&AD Executive, her profile is here and you can hop over to vote here.

What's your favorite funny story about yourself?
- Hmm. reasonably common knowledge now I suppose, but I am a trained taxidermist. I learnt it to work in a taxidermy shop; as a way of funding my university studies in Sydney. Before you ask, it was the only store between my share-house and uni campus, so it seemed like a good idea...

What piece of art (movie, book, music, painting, etc) has influenced you most? How or why
I am constantly influenced by things outside of 'advertising'. I'd say more than a piece of art, its a spirit that really excites me. Its the slow, transformational work based in the everyday of someone like David Lynch, or Tarkovsky's stalker. Its the same sense as in some of Haruki Murakami's books. There's a great Australian artist called Patricia Piccininni who taps in to the same kind of feeling in some of her work.

Who was your favorite mentor and why?
My most extraordinary mentor was Rosie X (@rosiex) who, as founder of geekgirl in the early 1990s took me under her wing and gave me a reason to start working with digital.

What's one thing that excites you about the future of advertising?
The fact that what advertising means is rapidly reinventing itself, and TV is now a channel, but not the pinnacle of a brands communication with its consumers. The creative process has really taken a leap forward and its a lot of fun to be in the middle of the new landscape. Its much more collaborative and much more meaningful.

If you could meet with anyone in history (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
My ultimate dinner date from history would be Ada Lovelace. It would be incredible to see what the woman who's work has inspired so many gURLs was really like. I also quite fancy meeting Madeline Kahn - an underrated comic genius and incredibly feisty to boot!

What’s your favorite website/blog, and why?
My favourite site for usefulness has got to be TVCatchup. Its basically Freeview on the go, anywhere in the UK. For inspiration probably the Lost at E Minor blog.

What's your trick to break out of a creative block?
Distract myself with pleasurable creative things - be it cooking, writing down last night's dream, sketching or even playing a silly game with myself (The Surrealist Book of games is a handy tome). The best ideas and answers often come to me as I'm falling asleep so I always keep a pad handy.

Who is your advertising hero and why?
Being an Aussie growing up in the 70s and 80s it has to be the team of Allan Johnston and Alan Morris (who formed Mojo). They shaped my young consciousness in the most profound ways. Allan was probably the world's best jingle writer and I still know the words to all his "songs", and what brands they were for! It's great to see joint ECDs in the 70s not adhering to the Art Director/Copywriter mould either (they were both trained copywriters).

Tell us one of the things on your bucket list.
If I told you, I'd have to kill you ;-) Seriously though, I have a few really useful ideas bubbling away - a few for mums, a few for students, that might make it out of that bucket one day.

What piece of advice do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?
When a piece of work doesn't feel right, its not right. If you see a project going the wrong way it’s always the right thing to do to say so, even if you don’t yet have the experience to know exactly how to fix it. If you say nothing it will ALWAYS come back to bite you.

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You can keep tabs on Laura via twitter at @laurajaybee and blogging at optimistprime.
Don't forget, she's in the D&AD Executive Elections , you can go directly to this link to vote without logging in.

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Jill Spradley Associate Creative Director at 160over90
Brian Bronaugh President at Mullen, Pittsburgh, PA
Bo Hellberg, Swedish ECD in France, at Brave and Billington Cartmell, Paris
Jane Goldman Creative Director/Copywriter & Strategist, Boston, MA
Jonah Otieno - Executive Creative Director 5ive Ltd, Nairobi
Anne-Cécile Tauleigne ECD at JWT Paris
Esther Clerehan, Headhunter, Sydney, Australia
Ad chat: Manuel Bordé Creative copy at BBDO Dubai
Rance Randle Art Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day\LA
Åsk 'Dabitch' Wäppling the force behind Adland
Dave Trott creative mischief chief
Arnie DiGeorge Executive Creative Director of RR Partners
Andy Kinsella Innovation Director at Glue Isobar
Koert Bakker Director of Strategy at Victor & Spoils
Evan Brown, Sr. Copywriter at TBWA\Chiat\Day
Dena Walker, Digital Strategist at Irish International in Dublin, Ireland
Bernie Watt, copywriter at Make, in Sydney, Australia
Ron Smrczek, Executive Creative Director of TAXI Europe
Vincent Vella, Creative Director - Grey Paris, Euro RSCG and Publicis.
Gideon Amichay, Creative Chairman of Shalmor Avnon Amichay Y&R Tel Aviv
Richard Tseng, Freelance Copywriter at CP+B
Claudiu Florea, Managing Partner - Wunderkid, Romania
Snorre Martinsen creative at Saatchi & Saatchi Oslo
Laura Jordan Bambach, Executive Creative Director LBi
Simon White Creative Lead from Rapp, London
Richard Gorodecky Executive Creative Director at Amsterdam Worldwide
Ray Page Creative Director at Tribal DDB
Adam Pierno of Off Madison Ave.
Edward Boches of Mullen
Dirk Singer of Rabbit, UK
Gareth Kay of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners
Tim Brunelle of Hello Viking
Rob Schwartz of TBWA\Chiat\Day

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