10 Weeks In Media
A retrospective of a client coordinator
It’s no secret to anyone that Melbourne is a city with a very tangible sense of identity.
This sense of identity is often the target of some fraternal teasing from our fellow states, but to the people who live here, it’s no laughing matter.
The ding of the tram as it passes by you on Swanston Street as you head up the stairs of Curtin House.
The hot air balloons in the sky above you as you wait shivering on a 2-degree morning for a bus that you know deep down is never going to arrive.
The crunch of gravel beneath your Salomons as you walk the Tan track with a coffee from Gilson in your hand.
Cybersigilism and second-hand Y2K.
The list goes on. But these few cultural assets are the very quintessence of why, despite our snooty reputation, I seem to be bumping into more and more Sydneysiders who choose to jump state lines and move into a run-down northside share house.
As a lifetime northsider myself, I think somewhere along the way I started taking our perfectly planned grid city for granted. But since starting my role at Kaimera a little over two months ago, I’m starting to see Melbourne in a new light.
My role is one that contextualises the city of Melbourne and its wider appeal, because the Melbourne media scene is one that certainly does NOT take the city and its depth for granted. If you find yourself at a networking night or industry event, rest assured you’ll be immersed in the rich pudding of the Melbourne cultural zeitgeist, surrounded by fellow media people who see for the city for what it is. Everyone is footy-mad, and have their own personal hidden dining gems which, at odds with Melbourne’s snooty reputation, they are only too happy to share with you over a media lunch-and-learn.
As the Kaimera Melbourne team continues to grow and build on the already formidable reputation of Kaimera Sydney, the team’s influence on the city’s media landscape becomes more apparent. When you find yourself looking up at the Punt Road bridge billboard at a Nando’s creative asset that for so long could only be seen within your emails, it’s a peculiar feeling. Or when you meet someone in the industry for the first time and they are already intimately familiar with a campaign you’ve been working on, you start to understand the impact Kaimera really has.
In my 10 short weeks as a client coordinator at Kaimera, I’ve already had the privilege of bearing witness to many of the ways our industry leverages all of Melbourne’s charms and unique experiences to achieve great outcomes for clients. And having the ability to have my own hand in influencing the media scene through Kaimera’s work has shown me something else: maybe it’s about time I start appreciating just how good we have it down here in Melbourne.
Seriously though those 2 degree mornings are horrific.