David Edeburn on Paid Media Campaigns and the Future of Marketing

Welcome to Marketer Interview, where we talk to top marketers about their journeys, experiences, and insights in the industry.

In this interview, we are privileged to talk to David Edeburn, the owner of Department 5 LLC.

With over 18 years of experience, David has launched over 600 ad campaigns for many of the most renowned brands in the world.

He specializes in paid media campaigns, motion design, video animation, and design. His company Department 5 LLC, has built a stellar reputation delivering successful campaigns for many of the most renowned brands in the world.

In this interview, we’ll discuss his career path, the challenges he faced, his expertise, and his tips for aspiring marketers.

Can you tell us about your background and how you got into marketing?

I started my professional career freelancing while studying at the University of Florida. At that point I was a young animator. I quickly fell in love with advertising because of the rapid pace of the work and continuously new challenges.

I worked at many ad agencies in Los Angeles, becoming a motion director before starting my business in 2015 as Department 5 LLC.

Since then, we have worked on over 600 global paid media campaigns for many of the largest brands in the world.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges in my career is keeping up with the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape. This moment in time is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Machine learning is already impacting the advertising field forcing agencies, freelancers and brands to rethink their production and advertising campaign strategies.

But this isn’t the first monumental shift I’ve experienced in this field. It’s mission critical now to stay up to date on the changing technologies, stay curious and experiment with new tools and techniques. I’ve spent a lot of time this year experimenting with disco diffusion, runway ML, midjourney, GPT4 and many other tools that are out or coming out soon.

Some of these tools will be completely reshaping how creatives and brands approach campaigns. We’ve even built a platform that integrates with GPT’s API to automate some amazing things. One of these days soon I will share publicly some of what we’ve built. It’s truly mind boggling stuff.

You have worked with many renowned brands. What sets successful campaigns apart from the rest?

It doesn’t hurt to make ads funny or resonate emotionally with your audience.

People see about 5,000 ads each day. So if you want to make an impact, you need to know your audience and connect with them on an emotional level.

Continually optimized and refined campaigns based on data or insights tend to perform better as well.

Can you describe your process for developing a new campaign, from ideation to execution?

Our process for developing a new campaign starts with identifying the campaign’s goals and target audience.

From there, we brainstorm creative concepts and develop a plan for executing the campaign across various channels. Finally, once the campaign is live, we closely monitor its performance and use data to optimize and refine it.

What are some of the trends that you see in the world of paid media campaigns and design?

Some current trends in paid media campaigns include increased use of AI and automation, more emphasis on personalization and targeting, and a shift towards video and interactive content.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting in the field of marketing?

Don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s just marketing, not rocket science (unless you’re marketing rockets).

Stay curious, experiment with new tools and techniques, and don’t be afraid to fail. If you are creative, pick your medium and become a master at it. You’ll be much more valuable as an employee or a freelancer that way.

Can you walk us through how you collaborate with other departments to ensure a cohesive campaign?

Collaboration is critical in developing a cohesive campaign.

We work closely with the creative services department to ensure that the campaign goals align with the company’s overall sales objectives, and we collaborate with the brand team to develop a concept and creative assets that align with the campaign goals and resonate with the target audience.

How do you measure the success of a campaign?

The metrics we focus on depend on the campaign goals, but some standard metrics include click-through rates, conversion rates, engagement rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Could you tell us about a particularly challenging project you worked on?

One challenging project I worked on was a new product launch campaign requiring us to reach a particular niche audience.

We overcame this challenge by leveraging highly targeted advertising and creating custom landing pages that spoke directly to this audience’s pain points and needs.

What are some of the tools and software that you use regularly for your work?

Some of the tools and software we use regularly include Adobe Creative Suite, Spark AR Studio, Lens Studio, TikTok Effect Studio, Slack, and various project management tools like Basecamp. We’re starting to use AI tools as well more and more frequently and I expect this trend to continue as those tools mature.