Monday
I hitch to work on the back of my fiancée JP’s scooter in the summer, but for now I’m taking the train from Dulwich to an iPod soundtrack of BBC 6 Music. At the morning sales meeting with associate director Tim Butler and senior account manager Chris Treacey, we forecast revenues for the week ahead.
I’m excited to hear that our innovations team has confirmed a headline sponsor for Nomad, our upcoming series of 150 pop-up cinema events. We often watch trailers on the big screen, and this morning it’s one for Robert Redford’s film The Conspirator - very heavy for a Monday morning.
The imminent launch of Pearl & Dean’s new B2B website is a high priority at the management meeting with chief executive Kathryn Jacob, finance director Rob Cooksey and business development director Howard Warren. We also discuss the full digital roll-out at one of our multiplex chains, Showcase, which will have a huge impact on how we deliver campaigns. I’m a founding member of the mentoring group Bloom, which helps junior women in the industry achieve their potential, so after work I meet my mentee to outline what we want to achieve.
Tuesday
This morning I meet Mike Deane, an account director at Manning Gottlieb OMD, to discuss an upcoming campaign for Playstation and to give him an overview of some of our new technology, which we believe is ideal for entertainment clients.
Then, as my lunch meeting is cancelled, I reluctantly head to the gym. We’re upgrading our computer system to integrate sales, schedules and finance, and I spend the afternoon working with our IT developer to check glitches and optimise the sales part of the system. I return home to find my weekly Grazia delivery on the doormat and spend a welcome evening with this and Sky Atlantic’s superb new Prohibition-era drama, Boardwalk Empire.
Wednesday
Another MG OMD meeting, this time with executive director Matt Wigham, investment director Sean Mellows and Kate Cohen, who will be head of cinema. With admissions predicted to increase by 3.5% this year, our story is strong and we plan to keep cinema high on the agenda.
Then it’s back to the office for 15 minutes before enterprise director Mike Hope-Milne and I head off to Shoreditch to meet the team from Little White Lies magazine to discuss our upcoming independent film festival week. They are keen to get involved and are a great fit for our events, which will showcase some of our independent cinemas and demonstrate their strengths for advertisers.
For lunch, I join our sales director Clare Turner and Lindsay Weedon, chief executive of Maxus, at Les Deux Salons. Lindsay and I are both getting married in April, so we compare notes and veto the idea of using the Pearl & Dean theme tune in the ceremony. The afternoon is spent putting the finishing touches to a couple of big campaign pitch presentations and a document for next week’s trading meeting. I then work off lunch at the gym and shuffle home, exhausted.
Thursday
Following an early presentation to the planning department at Target Media, I catch up with office issues. Myself and Tim Butler discuss trading for Q1 2011 over lunch, as well as our plans for the coming weeks. We have a new joiner in our production department, so Tim and I meet her to chat about improving communication between the sales and production teams.
We recently introduced email-free mornings to encourage the team to talk face to face, which has had a fantastic effect on motivation and morale. A representative from the Motor Neurone Disease Association then presents us with a huge cheque for £17,000, which we raised by completing the Three Peaks Challenge. Finish the day by heading off to meet JP at Brixton Academy, where we join a predominantly over-30s crowd for a Band of Horses gig and feel rather old.
Friday
I spend a full morning either on the phone to agency contacts, providing revenue forecasts to our finance department for the following week, or answering emails. Then I join head of marketing Ian McNaught and his department to run through upcoming projects. As well as the new website, which needs promoting to the industry, and the independent film festival, we publish a Summer Blockbuster Film Guide.
I join Matt Russell and Luke Carmichael, who both recently moved from investment to planning at Mindshare, for a very enjoyable media lunch peppered with industry gossip. Then I check on refurbishments at our new Medialab on Portland Place, which we share with our technology partner Tangibal. It’s a space for showcasing our interactive screens and floor technology to clients and agencies. Digital has created huge possibilities for cinema, such as the world’s first interactive 3D game.
Later on, I meet our head of research Anna Cremin to cover events planned during her maternity leave, such as our online focus group Movietalk, before finishing the week with a low-key dinner with JP at Franklin’s, East Dulwich’s finest eaterie.
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