Uprising: Why Luca Seichter Can’t Stand Still
In the countryside of northern Germany, Luca Seichter spent his childhood roaming around fields and exploring the woods with his friends. Now based in Hamburg, he was inspired by his father’s career as a creative director and decided to tow the path of creativity for himself. As a senior account manager at GGH MullenLowe, he loves working with different departments and leading projects to their completion.
Luca describes his passions as a child, "I played football from morning to evening. On bad weather days, I kept myself busy with my LEGOs or tried to get my hands on my sister’s Gameboy Colour to play Pokémon or an Indiana Jones game I loved.” With bundles of energy, he describes how his mother let him go to kindergarten for an extra year because the thought of him sitting at a desk all day seemed unlikely.
With his father working as a creative director in advertising, it wasn’t a far stretch for him to imagine himself working in the industry one day. He mentions an early experience on set, “When I was one or two years old, he [my father] brought me to a shooting for one of the largest public insurance companies in Germany as a backup baby (see ad attached – I think in the end it never aired with me in it, but it exists)."
Gaining these insights into the industry he says, “I had my first industry experience very early on and always had a connection to it.” So, when it came to the end of his schooling experience, it was no surprise that his inclination drew him to a job in advertising. “After school, I took some months to think about what to do in my life and eventually was drawn to a job in advertising more and more.”
He further explains, “My dad never said it but I think he would have liked to see me become a creative like him, but for me, it was directly quite clear I would go into account management.” This led him to do an internship at a pitch consultancy, dipping his toe into the creative world and giving him a taste of what was to come.
Describing his career path, Luca explains the alternative education and apprenticeship system which exists in Germany and that he took after his internship. “You work 3.5 days in your company and 1.5 days in business school a week. The cool thing about it is that you gain work experience right after school. I did an apprenticeship in marketing communications at Havas Creative Germany. Instead of going to uni, I chose this dual system, as I just didn’t feel like learning theory for another 3.5 years.”
Finding the right path for him meant that he was able to hone his energy into gaining practical experience while he worked, “For me personally, that was definitely the right choice back then. I like to get things done and just wanted to start working/earn money.” Starting in 2016 at Havas Creative, he was on the new business team for the Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Munich offices. He says, “I spent my first two years mainly in project management around pitches and everything else related to the business development of an agency. I worked together with a lot of senior people right from the start of my career, which gave me a great kickstart and a vast understanding of the industry.”
After two years, in 2018 Luca moved to DDB where he worked on the Deutsche Telekom account, learning what he describes as “the day-to-day business.” From early on a valuable lesson he picked up on was, “You will always learn from everyone you meet, whether you like them or not.” Further elaborating, he continues, “Either you learn from them how you want to do things in the future, or you learn how you do not want to do things. The latter sometimes teaches you even more.”
The first project that came to light for him was in 2018 when he was working at DDB. He says, “It was a huge campaign for the TV/entertainment platform MagentaTV by Deutsche Telekom with two actors as testimonials. They are a known duo for their own TV show and have their very own way of acting and humour if you compare it to the German TV landscape. I was a fan myself, so working on this as my first big campaign felt great as a fresh junior.” The campaign won awards at the Effies and ADC, with its distinctly German humour.
Asked about a piece of work that changed his career, Luca finds it a tough question to answer. Though he mentions the previous Deutsche Telekom piece as well as others for the brand, he also mentions a recent project for MullenLowe in the form of a TikTok campaign for Unilever’s brand Knorr. “We wanted to win back young people for the brand and also break the stereotype that many associate Knorr with meaty dishes,” he says. “We tried to make young people rethink traditional Knorr recipes by having 10 singers on TikTok re-interpret the brand's veggie versions of recipes as songs. The campaign won in the category ‘Greatest Creative’ at the TikTok Awards Germany at the end of last year.”
Throughout his work, the best part of the process for him is working with different departments, he seeks to be “involved everywhere,” as well as “To bring the teams together and lead projects to success.” Hoping to be an outstanding client lead and work his way to the senior management team, Luca develops by reflecting on what he could have done better and implementing this into the next project he’s working on.
When it comes to advances that he’s excited to see develop, the main one that comes to mind is creating “something you haven’t seen before” and in this instance, he’s excited to see how AI is going to change the industry. And speaking of changes, there are several aspects that are driving people away and he believes could be improved, namely “DE&I, sexism, low salaries and overtime.” “There are barely any new people joining the industry and the amount of people wanting to leave has drastically increased in the last few years, due to some of these issues.” The solution for him would be to “fundamentally rethink working models” to benefit creatives.
Aside from speaking about what needs to be changed, when he isn’t thinking about the industry or work, you’ll find Luca indulging in his sporting hobbies. “I started to play tennis again in 2022 and go to the gym. What’s also most effective for me is to just go out on long walks in nature. I got it from my mom. I can just aimlessly walk around for hours – maybe get a coffee here and there and enjoy the fresh air.” But he also has what he calls a ‘big nerdy side’ reflected in his love of gaming, fantasy books and anime.
Like most people nowadays, Luca has a subscription to most streaming services, “Netflix, Prime, AppleTV+, Disney+, Sky Entertainment, Spotify and Crunchyroll'' which means he can indulge in all kinds of watching genres. But when it comes to gaming, The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, the Fallout series, Battlefield, Borderlands and the Gothic series are his favourites, especially the development studios which go along with them.
And when the anime genre is concerned, he says, “my favourite author is Eiichiro Oda the creator of One Piece. The anime first aired in 1999 and is still ongoing with 1000+ episodes, so it has just accompanied me for most of my life.” He also mentions the MAPPA, who he credits as his favourite animatic studio with “Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vinland Saga and Attack on Titan.”
Having all these hobbies and interests, however, doesn’t mean he isn’t committed to his work when he’s sitting at his desk. He says, “I think standing still is boring. When I feel I pace down it makes me nervous. And if I didn’t give things my best shot, I think I would look back at it later and regret it.”
