A typical working day starts at 7am when my alarm cruelly wakes me up and reminds me that it is time to get up, out and running.
Yes readers, in a desperate attempt to get fit I am trying to be disciplined and honour the five day rule of running 5 miles each week day.
As often as I can be I am at home in France where I have the freedom to create, dream and work - but not necessarily in that order. I love being back here because of the light.
It really does inspire me. Most days we have sun and azure blue skies which help too.
I am normally at my desk by 8am and attend to the many emails that I receive. As our clients are international, a typical working day can be 24-7. I have strategies to create so I meet with my team to brainstorm ideas and applications that will add value to our campaigns.
Variety
The most wonderful thing about being in my business is the sheer variety of work that we are offered. When I started in this area we worked with pretty much anyone that wanted a website but quickly focused on the travel industry as they were early adopters of the web.
Friends said that we were mad to move into this sector at such a challenging time but I disagreed, feeling that in these tough times retailers in particular would be looking for more cost-effective and innovative ways to sell their products and digital media forms a very important part of their sales strategy
After some hard but successful years we focused on drinks brands and won accounts with Bacardi and Guinness. These accounts allowed us to really get our creative juices flowing by diversifying into online games, TV adverts, social networking, viral marketing and mobile applications.
We were also able to indulge our passion for music by creating music downloads, mobile ringtones and themes for TV adverts.
At the moment our major clients are in the retail sector and we are privileged to find ourselves the freedom to explore new and exciting areas of digital media. It was a conscious decision to move into retail at an extremely testing time for the high street and consumers too. This challenge I relish.
Friends said that we were mad to move into this sector at such a challenging time but I disagreed, feeling that in these tough times retailers in particular would be looking for more cost effective and innovative ways to sell their products and digital media forms a very important part of their sales strategy.
For example, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are simple ways that brands can develop and build a receptive database of existing and potential clients. Word of mouth recommendation remains the best form of advertising and these applications enable anyone, irrespective of size, to exploit that opportunity.
Recently, for a retail client, we saw an ideal opportunity to engage with customers using these channels. The UK suffered from the worst snowfall in years and pretty much ground to a halt.
We quickly responded by agreeing an offer that for every hat that was purchased a free pair of gloves would be thrown in. This was posted onto Twitter and Facebook along with a digital coupon that could be downloaded to a phone or printed out from the internet.
The response was excellent with 46% of people that received the message purchasing a hat, and 19% of that group purchasing at least one other item. Simple, but very effective because it was relevant and the timing was perfect.
Guinness
We are always looking for ways to excel and an archetypal day will involve me and my creative team investigating new and proven areas depending on the client. Some years ago when I was working on the Guinness account we were looking at ways in which we could appeal to a broad range of consumers and get them to stay on the website/revisit the website as often as possible.
We developed a branded website with video and audio links to previous and current TV adverts as well as message boards and suchlike. We were working with the strap line Things come to those who wait, and we had thought for some time that Flash-based games were fun and appealing to a wide range of people - not just hardened gamers.
