I got into the event industry because I left university in 2002 with a degree in engineering and found some work designing construction equipment for Caterpillar UK. I spent 12 months in front of a computer screen in a windowless room regretting my decision to become an engineer.
After a chance meeting with the boss of a top advertising agency in Covent Garden, I somehow ended up with an internship in a newly formed experiential division. I fell in love with the industry pretty much straight away and haven’t looked back since.
I have worked here since I joined Kreate in 2007 as a freelancer. I had grown restless at my previous agency and I was looking for a change of scenery. I had worked for Kreate in the field as a brand ambassador during my time as a student in the late 90s, so I knew the agency and some of the office staff well.
I settled in pretty quickly and progressed through a series of increasingly senior positions until being made a director in 2013. Seven years ago I would never have believed that this career would see me activate experiential campaigns all over the world, help deliver the greatest Olympics in history, or give me the chance to play the Wii with One Direction.
I was attracted to this particular role because experiential marketing was going through a period of rapid growth in the early 2000s and I saw an opportunity to be part of an agency that was in the right place to benefit at the time. When I joined we were already in a period of transition. We were developing our offering and expanding our services beyond providing event staff.
In the last seven years we have grown from a modest staffing agency to a full-service experiential delivery agency. We now have offices in Australia and South Africa and have developed logistics, production and digital departments to meet our clients' growing needs.
I was given the autonomy early in my career at Kreate to pursue emerging channels, leading to some incredible client wins that might otherwise have been unobtainable. In the seven years since I joined Kreate we have witnessed the changes that the emergence of social media has had on our industry. It’s given experiential marketers a powerful new amplification tool and opened the way for brands to talk directly to consumers. It’s an area of the business that we continue to grow; we are continually developing digital tools that enable social to be integrated into our experiential campaigns.
Not many people know that Kreate built the vehicle tracking system used at the Olympics to track the VIPs' BMWs around the Olympic Park. At any one time we could have told you the exact co-ordinates of Princess Anne, Lord Coe and Prince Albert of Monaco. This is the perfect demonstration of how broadening our offering led to us working with clients that we might never have had the pleasure to do work with.
The best event I've been involved was... I have worked on so many amazing events over the years, it would be unfair to pick just one. If I had to pick my most satisfying event it would be a recent global tour. The joy of seeing all 16, 14-foot-high polystyrene letters being lowered off a ship in Los Angeles in one piece was a moment I will never forget.
The fact that the container ship went through violent storms, customs strikes and pirate-infested waters for six weeks to arrive with literally minutes to spare, made the moment all the more joyous. Thankfully the client was none the wiser and the event was a huge success. Needless to say I slept well that night. Being involved in the London 2012 Olympics was also a highlight.
If I could do it all over again I would have done it all sooner. In my early career I wasted time being intimidated by the talent of other people. I enjoyed my experiences, but I didn't grab it in the way I would now.
The one thing I can't stand is agencies that sell the 'big idea' but neglect the fact that it’s the quality of the activation that determines success on the day. A big idea can drive the effectiveness of a campaign but it’s the quality of the activation that drives its efficiency. Whether it be location/venue planning, production or staffing, it’s attention to the details that makes the difference. It has taken Kreate 17 years to develop a successful formula for campaign activation. It’s not something that we learnt to do overnight.
Outside of work I spend my time avoiding stress. Events is a 24/7 industry, so I spend my time outside of the office trying to avoid my phone and my emails. I enjoy team sports so I represent Kreate in a five-a-side league while my legs still allow. I also like to travel, so I spend a lot of time daydreaming about my next holiday.
If money were no object I would travel the world. There are so many places to see. I would set up offices in every place that I visited so I could spend the rest of my career with a valid excuse to get out of London. Oh, and I would reward everyone at Kreate that works so hard to deliver our events by letting them all finish work at 5pm.
If I could switch places with anyone else... professionally I would love to swap places with John Slusher, EVP of Nike Global Sports Marketing, overseeing all of Nike's global sports marketing and managing relationships with Nike’s top athletes. I had the chance to work with professional athletes earlier in my career and it’s still something I would love to pursue. On a personal level, I would love to switch places with Roy Hodgson. Surely I could beat one point in a World Cup for a basic salary of £3.5m a year?
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