We need to think about an ecosystem of ideas – interview with Christina Keller

We invited Christina Keller, a Regional Head of Creative Shop on Facebook, for a cup of virtual coffee to talk about e-commerce, inspirations and clever mobile architecture. 

Attend her session during E-commerce Berlin Expo 2019!  

You are a Regional Head of Creative Shop at Facebook. Can you tell us more about your work? What are your responsibilities?

We are a team of former advertising people – copywriters, art directors, filmmakers, planners – with a huge hunger for big and innovative ideas. We are no internal agencies but see ourselves as coaches for the creative ecosystem across this region. The team helps creative agencies and clients to come up with innovative ideas across our mobile platforms – or to build on their existing ideas and transform them into mobile-ready campaigns. We consult across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Oculus and are lucky to be able to share this amazing playground with our creative partners.

How big is your team? What skills do you require from your team?

We are 10 people and 4 interns from Miami Ad School. We are all creatives and extremely hungry to come up with ideas that are innovative and new to the world. But creative dedication is not enough. As we operate in a very complex setting in between agencies, clients, platform, other external partners, a high degree of empathy and diplomacy is a great skill to bring. Furthermore, my whole team needs to manage its own projects – so project management skills are highly recommended.

Where do you look for inspirations?

We get inspiration out of many sources. Out of award-winning work, that motivates us to push our boundaries. Out of new technology, i.e. AR, that suddenly enhances the dimensions we can play with creatively. Out of friends and partners from the creative industry that give us feedback or ask for new solutions. From my stepkids and my godchild – who look at the world full of curiosity and playfulness. This is igniting and helps me to remind myself that I need to be fearless to lead the team to really good work.

Can you specify what are you going to talk about in your presentation titled: Pushing creative boundaries within the mobile space? Maybe just a key takeaway?

I will talk about mobile ideas that are made to resonate with people in our attention economy. Ideas need to be build to fit into people’s life. They need to be adjusted to their media consumption behavior. If we think about a mobile idea, it is not enough to provide a singular execution, i.e. the one, big, epic film. We need to think about an ecosystem of ideas within the mobile space where all ideas are directed towards a certain brand or business goal. People need to find easy entry points into a seamless and engaging user journey. This demands a clever mobile architecture around an idea – and carefully crafted creative that really sits well within the different mobile platforms.

What can we expect in mobile trends in 2019?

We expect stories to accelerate even further –  and are exploring Shopping within Instagram Stories already. Furthermore I am super excited about AR to become a more and more integral part of creative campaigns.

Christina is one of the speakers during E-commerce Berlin Expo 2019. If you want to see her presentation live, register here for free.

Christina Keller

Regional Head of Creative Shop Facebook

Christina Keller leads the ‚Creative Shop’ for Facebook and Instagram across the Central European Region. Together with a team of art directors, copywriters and planners, she supports agencies and clients to come up with innovative and efficient mobile first ideas. She is passionate about digging for data and human insights and about translating this into inspiring campaigns, that really matter to people. She worked as a strategic planner for Jung von Matt, TBWA, DDB over many years before changing on client side and initiating the employer branding campaign for Deutsche Bahn in 2012. She works for Facebook since August 2015 – and loves paper books, traveling, spending time with her Algerian godchild.
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