After accepting a job in a mailroom that led to a sales desk, DMCNY board member Joe Frick unwittingly stumbled across something more: a career in marketing.

Frick hasn’t looked back. From his beginnings at American List Counsel; to a 15-year run as with Adrea Rubin ending as her vice president of marketing and social media, to head of partnership development at the Oracle Data Cloud, he’s come a long way and has no intention of slowing down.

In a conversation with DMCNY, Frick shared some insight into his journey and the state of marketing.

Why did you decide to enter marketing?

I was a philosophy student who graduated with honors from Rutgers, I had no money, and I needed a job. I answered an ad in the paper and got a job in the mailroom at a mailing list company. Soon after, I was behind a sales desk, so I was an ‘accidental marketer’.

And how have you liked it since?

Twenty-five years in, I really like it.   To me, it’s all about the people. I’ve met some fantastic folks who have simultaneously mentored me and encouraged me, and with whom I’ve had longstanding business relationships. I think it cultivated that part of me that’s a people-person.

Also, with the transformation around how we communicate, and social media around which we’re still building the rules, it’s a neat time to be involved in marketing. Brands connecting to customers, nonprofits connecting to donors, politicians connecting to voters—every aspect of marketing is changing rapidly. It’s a sea change, and it’s a nice spot to be in.

What has been your biggest career accomplishment?

I’ve had the privilege of getting to build practices, so my biggest and best accomplishments are building a practice of new business development at Oracle Data Cloud, and a social media practice and sales team at Adrea Rubin.

How do you think your experience at Adrea Rubin informed your career at
Oracle?

My intro to the business was American List Counsel, I grew up at Adrea’s, and then I continued to mature at Oracle. I worked at small businesses for 20 years before Oracle, and I thought I was joining one of the subsidiaries that got acquired. I thought I was going from about a 25-person practice to a 400-person organization, but I went from 25 to about 140,000!

I’ve been fortunate at Oracle; I’ve moved into different positions since I’ve been here and it’s exciting. They’ve made a huge investment in creating the Oracle Data Cloud, and it has been great to be part of it.

What advice would you have given your younger self when entering marketing? 

Be gentle with yourself. Failures and successes are objectively the same thing in that they’re both opportunities to grow. So, don’t take the failures too personally. I’ve had to learn that this is part of a bigger process.

Give one prediction on the future of marketing.

Marketing will continue to become more customer-centric. I think that technology, especially the lens that’s on privacy and the handling of data, is such that the consumer’s voice is hugely relevant to what marketers are doing. But we’re still learning and developing the rules of engagement. The challenge is, how quickly can our culture and society keep up with the pace of these changes, and what will those impacts look like?

What do you enjoy the most about
being a member of DMCNY?

The people. I’ve had the pleasure of some long-term relationships with other members. The current board consists of some folks like Mike Hannay and Bill McGowan, both of whom I’ve known for years – it’s great! The New York marketing community is fantastic. The origin story of a lot of what became direct-response marketing began in this part of the world.