Justin Ruben on the Impact of Culture in the World of Advertising
Justin’s career has taken him around the world and back a number of times. After being a senior creative for BBH New York, he returned to Australia as a creative director for BMF.
Almost four years later, Justin found himself back in New York at Droga5, and The&Partnership as both a creative director and executive creative director. He’d spend a further eight years in New York in those roles before moving back to Sydney to be the executive creative director at CHEP.
Lucky for Host/Havas, New York hasn’t tempted their executive creative director back into its city streets.
Justin sat with LBB’s Casey Martin and spoke about his extensive career and why Spike Jonez is one of his inspirations.
LBB> What has been the most exciting and challenging project you’ve worked on?
Justin> In terms of impact on culture, it would’ve been when we managed to change the bagel emoji to include a schmear of cream cheese on it. It was surprising that the change was actually made.
LBB> With the ever changing industry and technologies, how do you learn to adapt and find a balance and how do you encourage brands to do the same?
Justin> We need to be more creative than ever to show that the robots can’t take our jobs. But at the same time realise that they are very capable and efficient at some other tasks. So, we should use them to our advantage.
LBB> You have been all over the world with your career, what difference have you seen in the industry and how has this changed/effected your point of view?
Justin> The industry is very similar, fundamentally we are all trying to achieve the same thing, just coming at it from different backgrounds. One of the main things I’ve learnt is that problems can be solved in multiple ways and meeting room sandwiches are universally popular.
LBB> Who/what has been your biggest inspiration?
Justin> It is a terrible cliché, but when I was growing up, I was really blown away by Spike Jonze’s work. He always seemed to be original and different, but super cool.
LBB> What is the biggest lesson have you learnt over your career?
Justin> Other than the earlier point about meeting room sandwiches, resilience is very important and caring about what you do. If you care about something you will want to make it great. Also there’s lots of ideas out there, sometimes you just need to keep looking.
LBB> What are you most excited about exploring at Host/Havas? How do you see their future developing?
Justin> The Village model here is super exciting and it will allow us to do different shaped work which looks less and less like traditional advertising.
