Kean Szczur’s Creative LIAisons Diary #1: Lessons from Advertising Legends, 10 Coffees Deep

Dentsu Creative Melbourne art director Kean Szczur is representing Australia at the 2024 LIA Creative LIAisons program in Las Vegas, featuring some of the world’s most respected creative directors as speakers. Here Szczur reports exclusively for CB.

DAY 1

A caffeine-fueled day of advertising legends from across the globe, and I’m still standing—just. Jet lag had me downing 10 coffees while trying to absorb wisdom from a rockstar lineup: Tara McKenty, Suzanne Powers, Conrad Persons, Adam Ferrier, Yasu Sasaki, and more. Here’s what I managed to grasp between sips:

LIA is *the* networking Olympics for young creatives. Collaboration is the secret sauce—nobody wins a gold medal alone. Keep your teams lean; too many cooks in the kitchen is a recipe for destruction. Yes, most of your ideas will crash and burn—embrace the frustration and channel it into your next project. When it comes to impressing judges, your case study better dazzle them in the first 10 seconds. And a client’s “no”? It just means you need to dig deeper. Build rapport, take them on a journey, and nudge them toward bolder choices (with a smile, of course).

Eight hours of panels later, my brain is fried and I’m off to grab a beer in this fever dream of a city. The day was a game-changer, answering those nagging creative questions and reminding us all—there’s no magic formula for great work. Don’t wait for it to happen, get out there and make it happen…even if you need 10 coffees to do it.