30 years? How time flies..

As 2025 careered into sight, with it came the dawning realisation that this is my 30th year working in Media & Advertising. As with many people I’ve met over the years, this journey was all quite accidental.?

A generic Business degree in hand, it was at first Journalism and Foreign news reporting that was my real ambition…with a Press helmet, protection vest and freedom to travel the world to tell stories of war zones, famines and disaster areas.?

However, more mundanely, one day my Mum, on her way home to Eastbourne from a London theatre, cut out and handed me an ad from the Standard.?

‘Graduate Media Press Buyers Wanted, Apply here’.

“Media!”, I thought, “That’s close enough!” and so I applied to Zenith Media Buying Services. I surprisingly got the job, despite for the first interview arriving very late at North Wharf Road as a sweaty mess in my new statically charged Fosters suit, having gone the wrong way from Paddington on an unreasonably hot Spring day.?

Yes, Damian and Theresa took some pity and offered me a role, buying magazine space for Campbells Soup, Columbia TriStar & The AA. However and correctly, after a year or so, it was determined that this young, wet behind the ears lad from Sussex was maybe instead better suited for sales. Damian kindly got me an interview with Media Sales and Marketing (MSM), my first step into sales as a Radio Sales Exec.?

They say, if you can remember MSM, then you weren’t there! This isn’t quite true, I do remember a good deal of it and mostly the friends I made, most that I still keep today. ?

We were really learning to sell here, we negotiated rates on telephones, being shouted at by TV Buyers for an extra 5 pence off & where they were told to add a little radio to their schedule. Awaiting the nerve wracking Station MD phone calls on a Friday to discuss the faxed revenue for the week (if you were lucky to be in the front of the fax queue). The Smugglers pub was our 2nd home and then after work we spent many evenings and weekends as a gang of friends, not just colleagues. 'That was MSM!' (still got the CD single).

From there via acquisition and consolidation, some people went to Emap On Air, Emap Advertising (selling Kiss FM..who knew you could go to Ibiza AND get paid for it!), Capital Group and across the media industry, but the friendships endured.?

My first foray into Digital was in 2002, joining Rivals Digital Media, a fabulous sports publishing outfit where we were tasked with convincing the world that ‘New Media’ did exist, did work and was accountable and measurable. Ok, some of that took a while longer…

From there, joining Microsoft Multinational sales, our small team grew and grew digital spend and pushed the boundaries, selling large scale brand solutions for the world's largest advertisers, travelling anywhere on the globe if there was revenue there. A great time and probably my biggest & best learning curve in sales and enterprise client management.?Something called Facebook kept doorstepping us, 'Come and join this new start up!' they said. 'No we're good, we have MSN Spaces we said'. Sliding doors!

Adconion followed, with the ‘Rise of the Networks’ and the beginning of a journey into ‘Ad Tech’. Again, a great company with smart people, ambition & launching my own team, being able to travel to clients in LA, Korea, Hong Kong, New York, all over Europe - to note, some real talent emerged from this business and so much career success has spread globally from these teams.?

From there, I moved onto some great businesses and also some more challenging ones, but I always look back to the top people I have worked with, I have developed and have learned from across Hi-Media, Unanimis, Mode, KBH and Taboola. Again, I’m so lucky to have worked with so many people who are stars in their own right across the industry today!

In summary, the Advertising world has been kind to me. I won’t say ‘here’s to the next 30 years!. This is unlikely, unless that official retirement age keeps jumping one step ahead of us all! But certainly, here’s to the next decade or so..

Would I do things differently? Yes, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, but overall the value of the relationships I have made trumps any of the wrong turns and mistakes - and anyway, it’s all ‘Learning’ right?

Regrets? I’d still love to be a foreign correspondent, or maybe do more writing, although the world today seems an even more dangerous place than it did in 1995 and anyway there’s enough bad news around!

Happy New Year All to all of us and here’s to a Successful 2025!

P.S. (Thanks Mum for that newspaper clipping).?

Disclaimer - ‘Recollections may vary’

Some individual tags from across the years. Sorry not to add all.. Damian B. Theresa Coligan ACC Christopher Bennett Bruce Daisley Andy Morley Steve Palin Ed Preedy Penno Marcel M. Teal Newland Harjit Badesha Nancy Willis Richard Trinder Kayleigh Britland Steve Fitton Mathieu Roche Andrew Fawcett-Wolf Katy Holliday Katie West Adam Bullock Jane Loring Victoria Pindar Taboola Claudia Gil Torrego Victoria Pindar Mark Charkin Jon Williams Tyler Moebius Mark Connolly (FCiM) Matthew Hunt Marie Stewart Maria Cadbury Aggie Dawborn Adconion Media Group Piers North Ryan Herman UNANIMIS CONSULTING LIMITED Nick Higgins