The original digital believer™ - currently based in the home counties (near London), UK.
When
I’m not out riding my Mountain Bike (flat pedals) or Surfing (long & short), I work in the marketing industry with a
particular penchant for anything digital.
Spurred
on by an insatiable urge to understand what makes things work or people behave
in the way they do I’m a keen Googler, Tweeter, Flickrer, Instagramer,
Pintrester, Youtuber, LastFMer, LinkedIner , Stumbler, Shazamer, suspicious Facebooker,
oh and blogger.
I’m
a huge fan of many brands,
democratic
process, a sweet
looking van, good
music, a good gig, dusty
trails and a
clean offshore day.
My enthusiasm for digital technologies and how customers use them to interact with brands, is infectious (apparently).
This enthusiasm has blossomed into a deep respect and appreciation for good brands and the solid, considered strategy needed to deliver that experience.
Coming from a digital background I am one of the new breed of marketers that is trying to break the somewhat siloed world of marketing.
I remember not so long ago when the web was considered a fad and the Ad Agency doors I was trying to kick down at the time just hoped it would go away. It hasn’t, and the world is a better and very different place for it.
I believe the consumer doesn’t see a brand communication as being digital, offline, above the line or direct. They just ‘see a brand’. They form a relationship with it, and if they like what they see they buy regardless of how they found it in the first place.
My background is originally agency side with my experience based in UK Travel & Leisure, Retail, Publishing, and Not for Profit.
I’m enjoying the focus of one brand, one goal, having to shave every day and getting used to wearing a suit Monday to Thursday (Friday’s it’s back to the GAP look).
In this role I head up the Marketing, Database, Call Center and Yield teams for Park Resorts the second largest Holiday Park operator in the UK (£180m turnover).
Having worked with Park Resorts for over 10 years already from the agency side it has been incredibly exciting taking the brand forward and fully exploiting the opportunity afforded by digital thinking.
I originally founded Yucca in 2000 prior to their acquisition by Bray Leino in 2011.
We worked with Clarks, Silverstone, Hoburne Holidays, Ecover, howies, Park Resorts, Ellis Brigham, Qype, Woolacombe Bay, Leger Holidays, BBC Magazines, Origin Publishing, Farm & Cottage Holidays, Canopy & Stars, Timeout London, Smallbone of Devizes to name a few.
Throughout the lifecycle a project I was in direct contact with all of their clients. This helped define upfront, by collaborating closely with Bray Leino’s Yucca senior team, how we can deliver for their business.
My key asset is my ability to identify relevant technology trends and applying them in unique and creative ways.
I have also managed Yucca’s Digital Marketing team which included PPC, SEO, Affiliate and Social Media.
In this role I took Yucca from a one man band up to 11 people.
We attracted private finance and attracted a board with relevant fast growth experience.
I was editor of an online surfing magazine Surfmagic which at the time was part of the Magicalia platform of websites.
This gave me fantastic experience of working with a dot com (Magicalia sold for £18 million in 2005) and early excellent learning's from working with a personalisation content platform (ground breaking contextual display technologies) and ecommerce affiliate platforms.
Business start-up. When I left university I was involved in the complete delivery process of a website including marketing of myself, scoping, documentation writing, coding (including HTML frontend build and database integration).
This phase of the business saw me becoming increasingly busy, eventually relying on freelance resource. I incorporated Yucca in 2000.