Climbing the iGaming ladder with digital marketing & graphic design. Meet Shaun.
In the summer of 2021, Shaun Pace was busy learning about Digital Marketing and trying out his new role as a Marketing Assistant in the iGaming industry. A year later, he was promoted to Marketing Executive with Evolution and back in an online classroom, this time to tackle Graphic Design. We caught up with him to see why he chose a double dose of digital marketing and graphic design to follow up on his MCAST Diploma in Marketing.
I mainly work in product marketing and take care of the product rollout for NetEnt and Red Tiger. It’s a fast-paced industry but it suits me completely since I’m always moving. I didn’t know the first thing about iGaming when I first started, and it comes with a different environment and mentality if you compare it to typical Maltese companies. It’s a very busy but very enjoyable job, and we have a fantastic team. I love it here.
My particular role is quite multi-faceted. One of the best things about it is that you get to see all the different elements you’ve been working on come to life, so that’s very satisfying. And as a personal highlight, I’m quite proud of the fact that I was promoted to this particular position. I hadn’t even applied for the role myself because I worried I’d be out of my depth, so I was happy to see they had a vision for me when they offered me the position.
I enrolled with ICE Malta when everything was at a standstill because of Covid-19. My friend had just completed the same diploma and had some good things to say about it, so I decided that the short course would be a better use of my time than just sitting around waiting for things to reopen. When I saw what ICE Malta had to offer, it was immediately obvious to me that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. With the 70% reimbursement through the Get Qualified Scheme, I was going to save €1,300 while getting skills I knew my career would benefit from and which I could immediately implement on the job. In fact, I took over the digital ads for the company as soon as I completed the diploma. It was a great top-up to my broader knowledge of marketing and it gave me the confidence to move forward with my own marketing vision.
With the pandemic, things turned even more digital than they had been before, so obviously, digital marketing skills quickly became an asset. And this is where marketing is heading, beyond older marketing strategies that stop at packaging and billboards. Now, the marketing question is: how can we go digital? In my case, I covered all the components of marketing with my MCAST Diploma, but I continued studying with ICE Malta because it allowed me to get the latest on digital, and with the importance of digital at the moment, the sky’s the limit. Even if you don’t specifically work in marketing, if your work involves the digital world or maybe you freelance on the side, this course is super helpful.
I didn’t apply for the course because I wanted to become a graphic designer myself, even though this is what the certification leads to. I actually enrolled because the skills on offer are really useful to my line of work. Part of my job involves overseeing the creation of all the marketing assets for any products we’re launching. What this meant, before I did the course, was that if I wanted a visual to be fixed, for example, I’d have to send it back to our designers and try to patch up my feedback without knowing the correct terminology. So I wanted to familiarise myself with Adobe tools—like Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator—so that I would be in a better position to communicate with my design colleagues, and the Graphic Designer Associate course was just perfect for that.
Now that I’ve completed the programme, I can either make quick fixes myself on any design output that I want changed or I can communicate with my team in a much more effective and efficient manner. And if I happen to need anything on a freelance basis, I can cut costs by creating my own design assets if I want to. Professionally, I have a more well-rounded skill set and the certification to prove it, which is also something I wanted for myself. I don’t like doing things by halves. If I’m doing something, I want to do it really well, so in my case, it was clear to me that I needed this course.
Studying online and part-time meant that there wasn’t really much I needed to change in terms of my daily routine. All I had to do was log in to the online learning platform and start my lesson. Both courses also give you plenty of leeway in terms of scheduling your exam. This way, I could choose a time when I knew I wouldn’t be that busy with work, so I didn’t have to pile on loads of unnecessary pressure. That flexibility is great, and so is the fact that you can rewatch lessons you were not present for or even as a reference point.
The condensed and focused approach of the course is a good alternative to longer diplomas available at other institutions. Not everyone wants to spend four years learning the ins and outs of marketing in its broadest sense. With ICE Malta, you can zoom in on the skills you actually want and learn to use them in much less time.
I was happy coming back for a second course for a reason. One of the things I really enjoyed was the hands-on element, especially when it came to studying Graphic Design. I find that if I can try something out as I’m learning about it, it means I can pick things up much faster. I was very happy with both my digital marketing and graphic design educators too. If I needed something and got in touch, they were always sure to reply within a short timeframe. Their feedback was always really helpful, so that even if you did something well, they’d point out a few more things you could do better, so they were always sharing their top tips.
I strongly recommend studying with ICE Malta. You can learn something new and useful, and all you need is 40 to 60 hours spread out over a couple of months. It’s worth it.
The focused approach of the courses is a good alternative to longer diplomas. Not everyone wants to spend 4 years learning the ins & outs of a subject. Here you can zoom in on your desired skills & learn to use them in much less time.
SHAUN PACEMarketing Executive
