Advertising on her own terms: Christie Ding’s cross-cultural success

Setting up a business was never in Christie’s plans until she found she had a massive advantage in marketing to Southeast Asian countries.

She had worked at marketing agencies for five years and her skills as a native Chinese speaker had proved extremely useful.

“I was the only Chinese speaker in the team when the agency assigned me to take care of the APAC, which is the Asia market, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually my advantage in the whole team’,” she said.

“I had a lot of suggestions, but the big agencies have their own processes, and when the ship is too big, it’s hard to be agile and adapt to market’s latest changes. So I just thought maybe I'll just do myself - set up the agency with my friend, now my co-founder, Hazel.”

Hazel Hu and Christie both completed a Master of Advertising at RMIT. While Christie was gaining experience at the global big four advertising agencies, Hazel was working in the entrepreneurial space.

When Christie explained her business plans, Hazel’s words of encouragement inspired her to turn her dreams into reality.

“We were just always chatting here and there, she's like, ‘Oh, how about we just set up an agency? We can do this ourselves’ and yeah, so this is how we started,” Christie said.

Christie and Hazel proved themselves quickly and in 2020 were listed in B&T’s 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs of the Year and finalists of the Austrade Australia China Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in 2021.

Christine Ding standing in front of a Victorian State Government banner.

Doing the groundwork

Christie recalls two pivotal guest lecturers at RMIT who not only gave her practical insights into the world of advertising but were influential in propelling her career. The first was by a chief executive of a creative agency who passed on some invaluable tips and advice, and the second was by an executive who recommended her for a position at a media agency.

“She was the reason I got my first proper job in the advertising industry,” Christie recalled.

“She recommended looking into another agency that she [thought] would be good based on my passion and interest.”

That job was with media agency FirstClick Consulting, a family-run, independent, boutique marketing agency that was later acquired by the Publicis Groupe and merged with an agency called Performics. There, Christie had formative industry experiences that ultimately put her on the path to owning her own business.

“I was there four years and being through the whole transition of the acquisition, found a boutique agency to be part of a bigger group was really good,” she said.

“That's where I had my real experience and learned from my manager at the time about the paid media industry. Then through the acquisition, everything changed.

“They had more resources, more teams and we just had to work in different ways with the bigger clients, which was good. So I was working with AGL and other clients with big budgets.”

Preparing for business take off

At first, Christie was hesitant about leaving the security of a salary-paid job. But given her market advantage as a native Chinese speaker, Hazel’s encouragement and a deep ambition to go her own way, she took the leap.

“I think initially I never thought I’d want to run my own [agency] because none of my family are business owners,” she said.

“Everyone works for a company. So, it just never came to my mind that I’d want to set up something myself. But my incentive is just to learn a bit more because I’m always like curious about new things and if I'm doing the same thing over and over again, maybe after a year, I'll feel a bit bored. So, I always put my hands up for any new things, new opportunities that just drives me move forward.”

Brand Catalyser was set up in 2017 and Christie resigned from her agency job in 2018 to work full-time with Hazel on the business. By then, the business had four clients and it was enough to keep the pair working as the business took off.

Brand Catalyser, which specialises in cross-cultural marketing strategies, now employs a total of 50 employees across offices in Australia, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

Understanding the Southeast Asian market

Christie's expertise led her to speaking at RMIT Alumni’s second Ready for What’s Next event, Building Success in Southeast Asia.

Christie told attendees that Brand Catalyser’s work with small-to-medium businesses was very targeted. The company maps out how these enterprises can pursue routes to markets as well as high return growth.

“The first strategy that we work with them is to identify what’s the priority for the business,” she said.

“So we go through a checklist to understand, first of all, the business itself and then the product and services they are offering in the market and if they have a cut-through in each of the markets and what’s the percentage of successful rate in each market combined in consideration of the politics and registrations and all of the requirements and obstacles to enter the market.”

Christie’s advice for those hoping to kick off a career in advertising or to start their own business in the industry is to network early and embrace AI.

“The people that you know from your class will most likely to be the same people that you're working in the industry, maybe even a colleague because the advertising industry is really small,” Christie said.

“Start getting the hands-on experience when you are starting. Don't wait until you finish because those opportunities are always there. You just need to grab them.”

Story: Kate Jones

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