youngest child syndrome – ashlee’s journey in to marketing.
Hi, I'm Ashlee – Director of Raffingers Marketing, Partner at Raffingers and youngest child of 3.
The stereotypes of the youngest child are as follows: manipulative, attention seeking and outgoing. Now you may be wondering why this is important, but to tell you my journey into the fabulous world of marketing – it absolutely is.
As a child, you would mostly find me dancing in front of the telly to disturb my siblings, convincing my parents to give me that extra £20.00 for the new clothes I desperately needed, or forcing my sister to do roll play acting games with me. As a marketing professional, you will often find me producing campaigns that disturb the market, convincing consumers why they need a certain product or service, and forcing motivating my teams to do silly things on camera for content purposes.
You see, if you find a career that you absolutely love it will never feel like work, and that is honestly true for me. When I was at school, I really struggled with the structure of it all, my dyslexic brain didn’t learn the way they taught, my outgoing and ‘attention seeking’ personality got me in a world of trouble, yet my ‘manipulative’ character managed to wiggle me out of it. I spent the duration of my school years learning more about what I didn’t enjoy than what I did enjoy, but one thing I did know was that when we were in Art, Drama or PE, the more creative and physical lessons, I was more than happy to sit down, listen and learn from my teachers.
I always knew I wanted to go to University, I could not wait for 3 years of making new connections, meeting diverse groups of people, and learning something I was truly passionate about. But how do you know at 18 what it is that you really want to do with your life? I was a dedicated dancer in my spare time, and one of my options was whether to go to performing arts college to pursue a career in musical theatre. I loved and excelled in art, did I want to do a course in fine art and one day open my own exhibition? Neither of these options felt quite right. I needed to dig deeper.
What is it that I truly loved more than anything in the world? People. I LOVE people. I love connecting with people, I love communicating with people. I love debating with people. I love listening to people. Was there a world where I would be able to do these things, every single day through the work that I do?
Introducing Marketing.
I decided to study Marketing, Communications, and Promotion at Nottingham Trent University, and it was there that I found my calling. Every lesson was like being on the apprentice and the ultimate outcome of every brief was convincing the target market why they need what it is you are promoting.
Marketing in itself is much like the youngest child - manipulative, attention-seeking, and outgoing. It enables you to tell stories for people and businesses in a way that makes people listen, it enables you to cut through the noise of the world and gain attention, it builds deep and meaningful connections, and it is both spontaneous and strategic. It’s what got me to where I am today, working with some of the most incredible businesses across a wide range of sectors, doing what I do best, and doing what I love.
The moral of the story is? Not all stereotypes are bad 😉
