CB Hot Suit Takes: Jules Hall, Founder/CEO, The Hallway
CB Hot Suit Takes is our new Q&A series for extremely busy CEOs and senior leaders across the industry ~ covering careers, creativity, challenges and the song that sums it all up. Next in the hot seat is Jules Hall, Founder/CEO, The Hallway.
1. What made you get into advertising?
I started my career working for Accenture, on their graduate program. The office was on The Strand in the centre of London. It was pretty awesome walking past all those huge, storied buildings, getting to work at the most senior levels with some of the world’s biggest businesses. But it was 1999, the internet was exploding, and it was almost obligatory to leave your big safe corporate job and do something digital. Except the term ‘digital’ wasn’t being used back then. So I left to join a “New Media Marketing Agency”. It was there that I got my first exposure to advertising. And I made it my mission to navigate my career in that direction. In 2007 I opened my own advertising agency. With Jameson Irish Whiskey as foundation client. And here I am 19 years later!
2. Which piece of work are you most proud of, and why?
That’s a very hard question. The first campaign we ever created won a Cannes Gold Lion and was a Titanium finalist. And we’ve continued in that vein, consistently winning heaps of awards for our work. But right now I’m really proud of our latest work for Webjet. The ads have won huge support across the industry. But what sits behind the ads is a total business transformation, led by brand. Which is the biggest impact we can have as an agency. I love work like that.
All the work is here: https://www.thehallway.com.au/webjet
My favourite two:
3. What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role right now?
The same one you’re facing. Advertising is dead. At least as it used to be. We have to radically transform our businesses, creating new product offerings, generating new pricing models and completely re-thinking our ways of working. If we don’t, we won’t be here for long. But the positive spin on that is that we have the biggest opportunity I’ve witnessed since the internet changed the world in the late 1990’s. I have never been more excited about the possibilities we have as an industry. Or the opportunities to apply human creativity in brilliant new ways. Because unlike 1999, this time we’ve all got the same tools. All for our $30/month subscriptions. And the differentiator is going to come down to the ideas we come up with to use the tools in better, more powerful ways. It’s about being 100% calculated in our creativity to drive transformative growth for our clients. And in turn, our own businesses.
4. What’s the most recent thing you’ve learned – professionally or personally?
Change is never as scary as you think it is. Back yourself to make the big decisions and great things will happen.
5. What song best sums up your career so far?
I’ve had an amazing run with this industry. So how about ‘Feel the Love’ by Rudimental? It’s an epic tune. And I saw them play the first time I went to Cannes. That was a good night!!
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