Uprising: Pop-Culture's Ins and Outs with Andrea Nzeribe
Andrea Nzeribe, today R&CPMK’s celebrity talent and influencer account executive, remembers barely sitting still when growing up. Her bubbly energy and outgoing personality shone through in her teenage years as well as early childhood - this is where she sees a link between herself and her passion for advertising. Growing up, she found an outlet for all that energy in music and dance in fact, she goes as far as to say that her whole life revolved around music and dance. Watching MTV videos and learning choreographies day in and day out was Andrea’s reality - “I really spent all my time doing that,” she reminisces.
Her role at R&CPMK today essentially means Andrea works on making connections between huge brands (such as Pandora and UGG) and equally bigger, or rising names in the influencer and entertainment spaces - we’re talking A-list celebrities and Instagram models alike. It’s where Andrea’s knack and knowledge for knowing what sticks really comes to life. Understanding connections between brand identities and human identities is hard work - it takes scouring the internet, understanding subcultures and brand values, knowing celebrity lifestyle through and through, keeping on top of political developments that affect identity politics, and a whole bunch of other heavy homework. Click here to find out more about R&CPMK’s work within pop-culture and the significance of influencer in brand-building.
But how did Andrea go from dance-obsessed to celebrity godmother connecting brands and people in the ways she does today?
Born in South London with Nigerian ancestry, Andrea describes herself as the ‘real product of the multicultural mixing pot’ that she grew up in. “Of course, I have the Black British background but also have a lot of influence from older generations where my grandparents, mum and myself have loads of Caribbean friends and are constantly interacting with people of the diaspora.” She’s certain that this kind of upbringing has an extremely positive impact on her life outlook, making her more compassionate, empathetic and understanding. “When it comes to the work I do today, I’m able to switch on my brain and be like ‘Okay, I personally love this, but would somebody that is into XYZ love it too? Or would someone that is different from me still be able to connect with this?’.”
When it came to her studies, Andrea brought her love of dance and music with her to college, where she did dance at The BRIT School. Finally, she switched to studying Spanish and International Media Communications for her Bachelor’s in Nottingham. “Making that switch was a lot of work and there were a few transferable skills. My experience at BRIT helped me career-wise, because the environment was semi-professional in a way and I learned how to switch from educational to real-world tasks and situations.”
During university, Andrea sort of ‘fell’ into advertising, although today her role sits in a hybrid position between advertising and entertainment. When it comes to the entertainment, that part wasn’t an accident because she’s always loved and wanted to be in the space, but the advertising side of things, she admits, wasn’t always her plan. “I do have a lot of interest in advertising and marketing so although it wasn’t my dream to achieve a role in the industry, it is an area I’m very interested in, so I’m happy to be here and always learning.”
Her very first job in the industry happened to be a culture marketing internship for Red Bull, but she names her current role as her first ‘full-time big-girl job’. “Prior to this, the real honing of my craft was really at school where we were learning about branding ourselves and were made to start using Twitter and Google blogs back in the day. Watching interviews has helped me learn how to better understand people and ask the right questions to get the information that is needed,” explains Andrea. “I also think roles such as creative director of our university’s Afro-Caribbean Society and managing social media channels for The Floor Magazine also provided great opportunities to learn.”
At R&CPMK, Andrea’s first professional project was working on their Pandora account, and specifically doing the gifting for the UK and US. It was still during her internship days at the company, so she began by assisting her manager on the account and eventually turned to the day-to-day running of it as it got transferred to her.
While the Pandora account was Andrea’s stepping stone through which she started learning the ins and outs of the culture environments R&CPMK operates in with talent and influencer, her most impactful project she says is the UGG EMEA account and campaigns within it. “That’s the first project I truly worked on end-to-end and eventually ended up leading, so I have a lot of learnings from it. I think it really gave me the confidence to take on more in my role - I’m grateful for that project and the team that worked on it and supported me.”
And although it is still very early days, Andrea has learned one thing that she goes by so far within the industry - to ask questions. While she finds herself quite curious and perhaps ‘inquisitive’, speaking to the broader community of juniors in the industry she explains that asking the right question could be the difference between failing and succeeding.
That also ties in with the aspect she loves most about her job - uplifting and celebrating other young talent like herself. Her current role is key to connecting people, places and products in unique and culturally relevant ways - building webs that would eventually leave a mark on popular discourse and totally change the game for some brands, while affirming others’ position. “I think it’s great to be in a position where we can amplify talented profiles - I also love different journeys campaigns take you on and seeing the final product come to fruition.”
“A challenging aspect, however, would probably be sometimes not getting the briefs that I’d love,” Andrea continues. “Part of agency life is having the scope to do loads of different things and touch on different projects so sometimes I’d be assigned to sometimes I’m not super passionate about. But it helps immensely to have a team that’s encouraging and people that are always on hand to support.” Making an impact beyond just sales is what she’s is after, and of course, the easiest way to do that is if what you’re involved in is not just culturally relevant for the world, but for yourself too.
But going back to that empathy growing from a multicultural background, Andrea knows that she is not always the target audience of the project she works on. This is when she simply ‘goes outside’ - “The fact that I live my life in the spaces I’d like to work, and I’m part of the scene that I’d like to speak to the most, really helps. By going out and meeting new people, and being in a place where I have connections with people from different walks of life, that definitely helps me to stay fresh and abreast of what’s going on in the field.” Having popular culture run through your veins is no easy task, so R&CPMK started a series called ‘The Daily Tea’, providing updates for all different areas of the industry. Andrea herself contributes to the tea brewing every week, so researching for her segment helps her keep her finger on the pulse at all times.
What is keeping Andrea excited about the future of her specialism is the incredible increase in creators we’ve seen in the past three to four years, amounting to a rough 7500% jump. “This might sound scary and like there are too many people doing one thing, but I think it’s amazing because it provides a broader and more diverse pool of content and talent that people can tap into. With apps like TikTok, you never know what’s going to explode next, so I think it’s great to be able to have so many different sub-genres of people that are on the internet.”
There are, however, a few different areas Andrea wishes the industry would do better in. Starting with transparency, and especially making sure that people are being paid fairly in every sector of the job. “Some companies are fighting the pay gap women face across the board, but I also think more should be done for underrepresented agency staff and celebrity/creator talent.” Andrea also believes that the industry as a whole should be better at showing up for the communities and the sections of society that they claim to support when it comes to specific times of the year. “Many brands and companies will display their love or support for minorities, but throughout the rest of the year their support doesn’t shine through the work or staff force.”
From a very young age, Andrea understood that if she doesn’t do it, nobody will do it for her. That’s why she asks so much of herself and this is what helps her get over any anxieties in the way - ‘which do pop up very often,’ as she mentions. “I try my best to put passion and drive into anything that I work on because I know what I’m trying to achieve for myself, my family and those that support and inspire me. I’d like to give people that come across my story something to be inspired or encouraged by”
