Limkokwing University’s Global Campus students in London attended a ‘creativity’ seminar focusing on how they can commercialise their talents and abilities in the creative industry. The seminar, titled ‘How to sell yourself as a Creative’ was led by Jeff Zie.
Jeff Zie is a marketing strategist with over thirty years of industry experience in marketing, digital media and design in both start-up and corporate environments. He has held senior strategy and management positions at Electronic Arts (EA Sports), BSkyB, Microsoft and EMAP. Zie launched EA’s casual games business, Pogo, in the UK, France and Germany. He also headed and launched Playjam, the world’s most successful interactive TV games channel. He has worked with many leading companies in the UK, and is a regular speaker and panellist at various industry events, including BAFTA, GETIF, MIP, Milia, Los Angeles Museum of Television & Radio, AFI, and the British Consulate.
Zie began his seminar encouraging students to focus on developing valuable solution in their creativity, saying that originality isn’t always best, but developing a ‘better’ product is. To illustrate his point, he gave example of the Apple iPhone, which has its latest version as the most profitable product to date. He said though Apple did not invent the smartphone technology, it successfully redefined and commercialised the product through brilliant ideas.
Zie urged the students to always ‘listen to their clients and audience’, and learn to understand and strike a balance between what the client wants and what the audience will appreciate. He said as a creative, students should be able to come up with material that can convince both the client and the audience, and be able to deliver that material with impact.
Looking back at his own career, Zie encouraged the students to have an attitude of continual learning. He said that on top of professional skills, one still needs a massive amount of calculated ‘luck’, which means being in the right place at the right time, and meeting the right people.
Students were given a chance to ask questions at the end of the seminar, to which they enthusiastically asked about Zie’s career and experiences, taking note of practises Zie said had helped elevate him to the top.