Because it’s a lot like… cobbler’s shoes. An agency needs to invest in its own brand, and tell its own story, to connect with clients, press, staff, new recruits, and the broader industry. Comms drives growth.

 

In a creative agency, an important part – and one of my favourite parts – of the job is getting the work out in the world, ensuring it’s seen and celebrated. It’s a big responsibility and privilege to be handed a thing that’s been dreamed up and miraculously made, protected into creation by lots and lots of people. Comms people are the ones ultimately trusted to tell the story of what the work is, how it came about, and why it exists, then to get that story into the right hands and in front of the right eyeballs.

 

I don’t take that lightly, because that work, at its best, moves people, moves markets, and moves clients forward in their categories and culture.

 

I’m using all of my journalistic, editorial, and storytelling skills. I’m sniffing out news and sharpening angles and riding the wave of the news cycle and scoring headlines – just on the other side of the fence. You can report on the industry for years, but being inside an agency gives you a totally different view. 

 

I’ve learned so much, but here are some things that are still, and always will be, a work in progress: How to run agency comms like a newsroom, and use all the talent in the building to tell our story. How to tell that story both globally and locally. How to focus on fewer things that make a bigger impact. How to balance the urgent and the important. How to zoom out to culture while zooming in to each piece of work, news, and opportunity. And how to use Outlook and Teams (a surprisingly big change from Gmail and Slack!).