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My Week: Tom Poynter of Southpaw

July 14, 2014 | 4 min read

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In the first of a new series of features from Drum Network member agencies, Tom Poynter, managing director of Southpaw provides an insight into a recent working week…

Monday sees three colleagues of the agency drop their cars off at my house at 04.00am in the morning and then us bombing it to Heathrow to get the 06.00am flight to Europe for an international pitch. This is what I love about our industry…..pace, grit and winning the chance to produce new thinking and work for clients that make a difference. It doesn’t get better than that.

Tuesday is rehearsal day. It’s an international pitch and the Japanese members of our team are late in from Tokyo. I am already foot tapping and ready to get going but having need to call on my last reserves of patience. They arrive by mid-morning and we get straight into it. A few skype calls with the agency here and there to check in on a few things and before we know it, it’s time for dinner and trying to relax before the big day.

It’s Wednesday and pitch day is here. Up before dawn to get an early morning swim in and time to decompress as well as think through the next few hours. The pitch is a big deal for us and will make a huge difference to our second half of the year as well as 2015. Before we know it, we are walking in to the room where we are greeted by 14 stakeholders who are keen to hear our proposal. We’ve got a great story so we have confidence that it will resonate and get us the victory. Can’t beat positive news in an agency and we’ve had five out of six victories in the last six months and don’t want the party to stop yet.

On Thursday, after flying back late from Europe the night before, I’ve got the post pitch come-down: exhaustion, questioning things over in your mind, could we have done better, anything extra we can be doing post-pitch etc. I check my diary and need to be at a meeting to chat to a condom brand about their lack of brand image with youth. It’s a real challenger brand so one I am really up for as that is where we get our kicks as a business – helping challenger brands outperform, rather than outspend, the competition. Now trying to shift my brain from automotive to safe sex. Meeting goes well and we have a sniff of a brief. The chance to work with youth audiences is always a pleasure as they are a tough segment but strategically and creatively fertile. Not a bad result for an initial prospect meeting.

Can’t believe it is Friday already. We have a deadline for a thought leadership article with the IPA that I need to finish and I fly to Tokyo on Saturday morning to see our board for our half yearly budget meeting. Apart from preparation for Tokyo, today is my day to spend quality time with people in the agency so it is a number of coffees and lunches in order to listen, have a point of view and to help nurture work and ideas forward. Paper work all ready to go for Japan. Home to see Clare and the kids before heading back to Heathrow where it is a week of whisky, sushi and jet lag. Love it.

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