When did you Join SMG?
September 2019
Describe your role in a nutshell?
I manage our relationship with the Co-op business.
What do you enjoy most about working at SMG?
Firstly, working with such an amazing team, everyone is great at their jobs and they're really passionate about what they do for the business. Everyone has a brilliant sense of humour and there's a real feeling that everyone has each other's backs which is such a nice environment to be in. Secondly, I'd have to say the fact that every single day is different - different challenges, different opportunities, talking with different brands and working on campaigns - all of this variety means that it's an exciting and engaging place to work.
What aspects of your role keep you challenged and curious?
We need to make sure that we're accommodating everybody's needs - from a Co-op point of view, because they've got a really strong strategy and values, so making sure we stay on top of that and deliver against that is definitely challenging in its own way. We've also got a lot of brands that we work with who all want to achieve something a little bit different, and so we have to create campaigns that cover all of those objectives for each brand.
Which SMG value would you say is your favourite and why?
I would say "Stay Hungry" - because as one of the more experienced members of the team, I think that there's always something to learn in these roles and in this business, whether it's about existing or new clients, improving ways of doing things, new campaigns and keeping on top of shopper behaviour, there's always new things to learn and we should always continuously be learning about what we can better.
What piece of advice would you give to someone starting SMG
Take inspiration from everywhere - we're all shoppers, we all go grocery shopping and we all use the brands and the retailers that we're representing, so take inspiration from this and be curious about everything that you see.
How have things changed over the last year?
The way the team have reacted to the circumstances has been exceptional. We have had to be much more reactive to the changes in shopper behaviour and sentiment which has meant that we have had to be agile in our responses - whether that's creating new campaigns and events or working with our partners to reduce the lead times for print to help us get campaigns live quickly. I think we've hit the mood of the nation with every campaign we've done this year and the agility is something we will keep in our armoury as we look forward to returning to the office and seeing our clients face to face soon.