Leilani Horthy Banks’ Creative LIAisons Diary #2: “You’re so money and you don’t even know it”
Leilani Horthy Banks, Junior Art Director, Clemenger BBDO (formerly DDB Australia) ~ current CB Australian 2025 Agency of the Year ~ is representing Australia at the 2026 Creative LIAisons program in Las Vegas, featuring some of the world’s most respected creative directors as speakers. Here, Leilani reports exclusively for Campaign Brief.
Vegas, Day 3 (or is it 4?), 03:17am.
There comes a moment on every Vegas work trip – this being my first – when you have to look yourself up and down in the hotel mirror, straighten your LIA conference lanyard, slam two ibuprofen and remember one thing:
You’re so money and you don’t even know it.
At least that is what I’ll be telling myself tomorrow, or rather today, when in a few short hours I have to haul ass out of bed, rally my overstimulated mind and sleep-deprived body, and front up to another day surrounded by some of the sharpest minds in the biz. All while slot machines ping off in the background,
Crown casino wishes she could be this baller.
For now my mind is reeling. The past two days have been filled with the heady joy of listening to people who, at the height of their careers, are still filled with passion and inspiration and hope for our industry. We heard from CCOs as they delivered shrewd advice – some of which was about believing how money you are, though in perhaps a few more words.
Marjorieth Sanmartin phrased it as ‘You’re better than you think you are’, and told us to not be embarrassed or afraid of taking ownership of our work, our opinions, our actions and, perhaps most importantly, our weirdness. Advice that, as someone constantly being eaten by self doubt — a trait I think a fair few of my fellow mentees share — served as a welcome (gin &) tonic to those niggling anxieties.
Magnus Jakobsson put it a little more bluntly – be the freakiest person in the room. This is also what I’ll be telling myself in the mirror tomorrow morning.
We learned to be resilient, to embrace imperfection, to protect the idea and know when to fall on our sword, to learn how the money is made and where the bodies are buried. To focus on the things we can control, and forget about the things we can’t. And to get therapy. If nothing else, it’ll help you understand how people think, so you can sell to them more effectively. You can credit Jeff Benjamin for that sage piece of advice. We really are an industry of psychos and I’m so here for it.
We also got the chance to judge the work, and boy did we judge. The most important lesson? Five little words: ‘I love the work, but…’ (I actually really truly did love the work though, I swear).
And we heard from a true legend of the industry, Susan Credle, whose passion and fervour and hope for the future of creativity infused us all with the sort of buoyant positivity that makes you feel like your feet aren’t quite touching the floor. On a side note Nevada is a state where marijuana is legalised but I’m sure the two things aren’t connected.
And with that we floated out of the room and off to the dance floor, because when you’re in Vegas and someone offers you free tickets to Steve Aoki, you say hell yes and dance until your toes fall off.
We’re gonna be up five hundy by midnight.
Vegas, baby. Vegas!
(All credits to Charity Chen for literally capturing the rainbow. So money.)
Read Leilani’s first diary here
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