Current Clients: Fortis, Finnair, Xerox
Born: England
Worked in: London
Describe an innovative idea or business solution of which you are most proud. My recent work on the multiple-award-winning Xerox Colour campaign is freshest in my mind. An innovative media strategy helped re-energize an old-fashioned, black-and-white copier company and establish it as the leader in business color.
We demonstrated the practical and emotional values of color by adding it to traditional black-and-white environments and removing it from “expected” color environments. Some examples included transforming “Alex,” the Telegraph cartoon, from a simple line drawing into color art with specially created story lines around color, adding 3D light bulbs to posters that changed color, and the first-ever color ads on FT.com’s Blackberry service.
Why do people see you as an innovator? Whatever the budget, whatever the challenge, I am passionately committed to developing simply defined media strategies that help to effectively deliver brand differentiation and consumer connection. It is almost impossible to achieve this by relying on traditional “cookie-cutter” media planning approaches.
What role does innovation play in your marketing strategy today? Innovative thinking has never been more important. In an increasingly complex and fragmented media landscape, where consumers are increasingly taking control of the way they access information, it becomes even more critical to develop ideas that stand out and deliver genuinely active consumer engagement.
What is the biggest challenge you face in applying innovative thinking to international projects? International projects inevitably take more time and “diplomacy” to develop as they comprise more stakeholders. Local market resistance to centrally driven strategies is a regular challenge. It is therefore critical to develop strategic communication guidelines that are flexible enough to inspire innovative and creative activation at a local level, thus avoiding the “this won’t work in my market syndrome.”