My top tips for a successful career in PR or marketing

It's scary to think about it, but I started my degree 21 years ago.

I was trained in PR, seems a bit funny saying it like that, but it's true.

I went to a former polytechnic, Leeds Metropolitan University, now renamed Leeds Beckett I think. The course as a result was deliberately vocational.

Anyway since graduating in 1998 I've spent the last 17 years in a variety of comms roles at Green Flag, Direct Line and Asda.

The land of the pocket tappers has never been dull.

Having started there back in 2002 initially looking after food and farming, I was lucky enough to take up roles including head of PR and head of social media.

More recently I've overseen marketing innovation, helping explore new revenue opportunities for Asda. That's included leading a team that has built a pipeline of new digital assets to unlock investment from FMCG brands who value having access to Asda's 18m households.

I've also overseen the transformation of Asda.com's adserving capability, which in the coming months will enable Asda to become a credible media publisher.

And I've built Mum's Eye View on YouTube, capturing 11m views since launch in under 18 months.

I was asked by The Drum recently what keeps me awake at night. Truth is very little (other than my six year old), but the work thing I ponder about most in those quiet moments is how brands are going to make the transition from mass market, broadcast media, to targeted, content driven comms, but at the scale they need and crave.  No-one has cracked the nut yet.

In fact for many brands they are yet to embrace digital, let alone understand how to harness it.

The abyss is just round the corner, but by the time they wake up and realise they need to change it could be too late.

It's an old adage but you no longer need a digital strategy, your strategy needs to be fit for the digital age.

If you're reading this and just starting out on your career in PR or marketing, these are my top tips:

1. Never stop being inquisitive.

2. Network, network and network some more.

3. Be healthily paranoid that your assumptions could be wrong.

4. Take a chance once in a while, but be humble when it goes wrong.

5. Learn from your set backs.

6. Find a good mentor.

7. And then coach others in return.

If you've enjoyed this blog post be sure to share it with your network, or like the post on LinkedIn or Twitter, or leave a comment below. If you haven't enjoyed it, feel free to say why.

A mum's eye view of YouTube

Eighteen months ago we launched Mums Eye View into the world of YouTube.

It's fair to say we took our time working out how Asda could be more relevant on one of the world's largest social networks.

In fact we'd spent nearly nine years hiding hours of videos on our own Asda channel which had very few subscribers and a similarly low number of viewers.

The conundrum we faced was more than one quarter of our own customers, some four to five million people, told us they visited YouTube every day.

After Facebook it was the most popular social media site for Asda shoppers.

It was also at a time when short form video was exploding across Vine and Instagram. And Facebook was indicating it too was serious about video.

Now, it should go without saying, people follow people on social networks.

Much as brands like Asda like to think it is all about us, actually it is the stories we are part of that truly resonate.

And no more so than if it is one of your close friends telling it, or someone you have an intimate relationship with.

Clearly word of mouth is not a new phenomenon, but in spite of our own relative success getting it right on Facebook, we were struggling to get it right when it came to YouTube.

The lightbulb first flickered when we considered an important question.

As a brand on YouTube should we create video content ourselves, or curate other people's. It puzzled me for weeks if not months trying to figure it out.

A pivot point

Then around two and a bit years ago, thanks to a session at YouTube, we were introduced to an agency called Gleam Futures.

At the time Gleam were based in the basement of another agency's office near Covent Garden.

The meeting was significant and immediately helped change the course of our approach to YouTube entirely.

Gleam, in their own words describe themselves as an agency that 'manages social talent'. They describe social talent as 'individuals who have built considerable audience & influence on social media channels'.

They only manage quality talent who are among the top social creators in the world, dedicated and passionate individuals who are extremely professional in my experience.

Back then I don't mind admitting I had never even heard of Zoella, or Tanya Burr or the SacconneJolys.

Now they are household names, regularly featuring in the weekly glossy magazines, or on ITV's Real Stories, or on Celebrity Great British Bake Off.

Even my nine year old knows who they all are.

Yet, most brands are still at a loss when it comes to harnessing 'social talent', nor do many even recognise how talented vloggers really are. You often hear people bemoan these kids simply videoing themselves on their phones in their bedrooms. Have they even got any qualifications?

Our approach since meeting Gleam has been dramatically different.

We've confidently handed over editorial control to a small number of hugely influential vloggers.

We've resisted the urge to be in the room with them, instead simply providing a simple brief, then letting them do what they do best.

As a result we now know when and how our brand should feature in a YouTube video if at all.

So anyway, here we are two years on, 18 months after launching Mums Eye View, more than nine and a half million views under our belt, and 180,000 subscribers.

According to Social Bakers if Mums Eye View were listed as a retail brand (we are listed in the entertainment category) we'd be in the top ten in the UK based on the numbers of views we've had to date, and number two for total subscribers.

Our latest five-part baking series has notched up just shy of a million views on its own in under six weeks, added 25,000 subscribers in the process, with a click through rate of more than three per cent, but peaking at six per cent on the Monster Jazzies video.

If you search 'baking' on YouTube, two of the top four results are baking videos from our channel. Staggering SEO, considering we've not spent anything on promoting that content.

It feels like we're now approaching a tipping point.

We can now help harness new up and coming talent, giving them access to our 180,000 subscribers on our channel.

But also, we can now open up the channel for relevant brands to get on board and participate too.

That last bit is proving easier to say than do however.

I still find it staggering how entrenched most marketeers are in creating video content that no-one ever sees.

I won't be mean and name them, but there is one at the moment that is paying for a minor celebrity to host a series on their channel alongside a vlogger.

The content is fine. But that's not the point. With no subscribers and therefore no option but to pay for views the engagement is non existent.

Anyway, that's the next challenge I guess. Helping brands integrate with Gleam's social talent in a way that meets their marketing goals, but respects the medium and the content creators.

Watch this space.

48 hours in Cannes

I'm very fortunate in my role that I get the opportunity to go to interesting places on business. Occasionally those interesting places are also bathed in sunshine and are beautiful on the eye.

This past couple of days I've had the privilege to attend Cannes Lions. An event synonymous with advertising creative types, media houses, and more recently ad tech companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.

The new kids on the block are no doubt changing the dynamic somewhat.

Buzzword bingo was dominated by phrases like programmatic and viewability.

Panels debated whether the old guard were fraudulently trading ad inventory as they struggle to maintain healthy margins.

Everyone across the sector appears to be doing part of someone else's job now.

For my part I was here to take part in a panel discussion on whether retailers like eBay and Walmart are going to be able to become credible ad publishers in our own right.

In front of a packed audience of 200 people on 'Le Rooftop' (I'll resist the temptation to translate that for you), who to be fair had probably come to see the panel after mine, we debated the power of first party data in determining whether ad spend was effective.

In my mind it highlighted the scale of the disruption still to hit the ad industry. A sector in the UK alone that is £18bn strong.

Retailers have an unprecedented opportunity to optimise FMCG brand dollars in a way not seen before. Effectively saving companies money on their advertising, or more likely, enabling them to spend the same amount but drive sales harder.

And unlike other ad publishers, retailers have a vested interest in the ad spend actually working.

Anyway, this is all a roundabout way of saying that in spite of the gorgeous setting, the unbeatable weather, and the general loveliness of the French riveria, the calibre of people attracted to the event makes attending worthwhile.

It's the conversations and connections made that add huge value. Be that comparing notes with eBay, or pitching your view of the world to the senior team at Google over lunch.

Meetings that could be set up in more mundane locations but inevitably aren't, enable you to make big leaps forward, and in my case at least, have hardened my resolve to move faster and more aggressively.

And if nothing else you get to pretend at being rich for 48 hours by oggling all the yachts and stopping for a croissant and machiatto at the Georgio Armani café, which as it turns out is remarkably good value.

Ritual living

There's something soothing about holiday rituals.

Tea and cake at 4.30 in the afternoon.

Coffee first thing on the veranda.

A glass of something chilled as the sun goes down.

The call to prayer. Albeit not observed by us.

Yet the ritual I'm more accustomed to in the hustle bustle of my working life is the 8.11 to Leeds.

The third carriage along, without fail.

Were a secret spy ever laying in wait for me, deciphering my whereabouts would be child's play.

As humans we are naturally habitual.

But the habits we have slipped into are often far from healthy.

The wocca-mocha-chino on the way into the office.

Checking emails as soon we wake up and just before we go to sleep.

Sharing our every movement on social media (ok, ok, I know... I'm more guilty than most on that point).

With many of our natural rhythms disrupted by modern life, my sense is we are yearning for the rituals of our ancestors.

Where religion previously filled the gap, our ever more secular Western ways have left a void.

Our pagan ancestors worshipped the sun and the moon.

The passing of the seasons and the movement of the galaxies above informed their way of life and their perspective on it I'm sure.

Without today's light pollution all around them, the bleed of our street lamps and neon lights, their connection to the universe, and their relative place within it, must have been more profound.

Stargazing wasn't a mere holiday excursion, but a nightly occurrence.

Here in Morocco, with the stresses of work evaporating by the minute, I'm reminded of a more simple way of life. But also a more centred one.

Travelling is clearly good for my soul it would seem. It is also a quiet reminder of the need to have a healthy balance between work and life.

Morbid as it sounds, the treadmill we're all on leads to one ultimate location in the ground.

I for one am determined to jump off it from time to time.

Unplug the apparatus.

Wander a little more through life, taking detours along the way.

Time to pause. Reflect. Ponder.

Rituals that don't just rely on work work work, followed by wine wine wine, or whine, whine, whine.

Some rituals however are probably more ingrained than others.

A blog from 30,000 feet

The weirdest thing happens to me at altitude. Granted it's normally after a couple of glasses of wine at an odd time of day, but even so.

I get emotional.

Having just watched two British films in quick succession, firstly the one with Sherlock playing the Enigma dude. Then the one about Stephen Hawkin, I feel the need to share.

The latter film had me booing on and off throughout.

A love story underpinned by the tale of one of the most intellectual men on the planet I'd imagine.

It obviously got me thinking.

In part how insignificant I am. Which sounds somewhat melancholy so let's move on.

But more importantly reminded me that my own father went to Oxford. Is an eminent professor of chemistry.

Has a sharp wit. A brilliant mind. Yet my own kids only really know him as granda'.

Worse still, if I'm truly honest I only know him as dad.

What of his true passion. His field of chemical catalysis. His discovery of compounds that have reshaped the motor industry or made farming more sustainable.

It made me think, through the tears I might add, that I owe it to him, and to myself, to get to know my father.

The whole man, not just the one who has cared and nurtured me. Who has got me out of trouble. Had my back. And never ceased to be proud of me.

[Pause]

Another tear left my eye then. Hence the dramatic pause, in my head if not yours.

Reflecting like this in the heady world we occupy is so seldom done.

And more than that, forty year old men like me are not usually accustomed to sharing those inner thoughts that bubble up when feeling emotional.

Anyway.

The genius that solved the enigma took his own life. Aged just 42. A gay man persecuted for his sexuality. Shocking really. A war hero only recently honoured.

The man who wrote a brief history of time was struck down in his prime by motor neurone disease. But still to this day is considered one of the most influential thinkers on the planet.

Both stories tragic and uplifting in equal measure.

Historians estimate the enigma breaker helped shorten the war by two years and hence saved 14m lives.

While Hawkin may have explained both the beginning and the end of the universe.

I on the other hand know how to sob at
30,000 feet and drink wine.

I also know I must seize the moment on my return from the US to spend quality time with my dad. To hear his story so I can pass it on in years to come.

But let me also tell you this.

One thought I hold dear, is that I've been lucky enough in my life to discover happiness.

I'm happy.

Not always, not all of the time.

Not ecstatic. But happy enough. Satisfied with my lot.

And that reality in anyone's book is worth more than anything else in the universe.

Going our separate ways

Today we did that thing where one of us spent the day with one child and the other with the other.

It's a simple thing to do. Makes them feel really special. And allows you to go and have some fun as a twosome.

The activities were decided by each child. I got to go swimming. Becky was treated to a pyjama day and a film snuggled up on the sofa.

Everything is easier when there are only two of you. It's cheaper for a start. Quicker to get out of the house. And you get to spoil them a bit more than usual as there's no sibling moaning or bickering with the other one.

We went swimming in Keighley where there was a slide and everything. Then on to McDonald's in Shipley for a burger (plenty of don't tell mummy moments). Then onto the park for a hot chocolate, via a newsagent for some Tic Tacs. Then as luck would have it Amelie bumped into her mates so got to run around with them too.

It was ace. Such a simple idea. And a lovely change to the usual weekend routine.

If you've got two and you've not done the same I heartedly recommend it.

San Francisco comes up trumps again

There's something special about San Francisco. Not just the fact it's a lovely city with a winter climate to die for. It's a melting pot of ideas. Full to the brim with smart people who want to make the world a better place.

Sounds a bit worthy that, so I'll qualify it by adding that most of the ones who are successfully making the world a little better are doing so and earning big bucks too.

In four working days my colleague Nick and I have had some brilliant conversations with people who frankly were it not for us working for Walmart wouldn't have spared the time.

But once in their company they couldn't have been more accommodating.

We've had our brains stretched by clever engineers, our ideas entertained by seasoned entrepreneurs, and our vision endorsed by people who have been there, done that, and invented the T-shirt never mind bought it.

It's a huge privilege to get the chance to travel here for work.

But every trip pays back in spades.

Not only does it help calibrate your thinking it also enables you to reflect, connect, and make leaps forward.

I'm really excited by the year ahead. If only half of the things we've discussed this week materialise it's going to be an awesome* year.

*Apologies for using the A word but I've been in California a week now you know :)