ALICE WASS
Exploring Media

I attended my first ‘Global Leadership Programme’ speaker event presented by Philippa Snare, an EMEA Global Business Marketing specialist, currently working with Facebook. I had been excited about this event for a while, as I am not only a user of Facebook but also because it is such a huge social media platform and therefore links nicely to my degree in media.

 

Philippa has worked in the marketing internet industry for over twenty-two years. She achieved a marketing degree at Coventry University and is also a qualified web developer and MBA Graduate. When Philippa was a student she believed that communication was going to fundamentally change, affecting how we all talk and interact. However, when she submitted her dissertation which focused on this topic she was told that her belief was wrong as communication was not going to change! This did not shake her beliefs and so she chose jobs which worked with the changing world of communication.

 

Her first job was with a company called ‘Scoot’ building a dotcom business growing £100M in Classified Ads. Next she worked at ‘Yell’ as a business developer, focusing on distribution with multi-national and global partnerships. In 2000 Philippa started working at Microsoft, specifically with MSN, and helped grow online services by 300% in advertising revenue. Subsequently she led public relations, built a Modern Marketing organisation driving strategic initiatives for Microsoft in the UK. In 2016 she joined Facebook, where she is passionate about building an extraordinary future through digital marketing impact demonstrated though leadership and driving positive change. The amount that Philippa has done in the industry is outstanding, and shows me that once you are in the industry, it is easy to specialise and move from one area of focus to another within a company.

 

Marketing is at the heart of communications, however communication principles have changed over the years due to the internet, which aimed to enrich people’s lives. Marketing is also closely linked to advertising, which creates mass awareness, brand equality, brand image, quality perceptions, brand association and helps overall to drive sales. Advertising is as influential as radio used to be. However, when people think of advertising most of their opinions are negative, with people assuming the sole purpose is to sell audiences a product. This is not true for all companies, such as Facebook, which aims to enhance communication, not interrupt one’s life. Facebook believe that their adverts focusing on enhanced communication are positive propaganda, a disruption for the good. Philippa also explained the difference between the ‘formal playground’ and the ‘informal playground’.

 

Philippa showed us the results from a third party study, which found that audiences only need to see an image for 13 milliseconds to be able to identify what it is, as the human brain process images 60,000 times faster than words. With this in mind, Facebook have been working to improve their services, for example through Instagram stories and adverts. It is important for companies to change their services as new information is discovered as in an ever changing media society companies who can adapt, survive, those who do not change will inevitably die out.

 

I found this such an interesting and aspiring talk as it shows what an exciting industry I will one day be a part of. Communication is constantly changing and this makes any job within the media industry the newest and most relevant that it possibly can be. I found Philippa an excellent speaker, and was inspired by her passion for her career and the ability to learn something new every day. She also highlighted the importance of having a job that fits into your personal values and beliefs, as it is these values that will come out in your work. Therefore, when I am thinking about what job in the media industry I would like, I will compare potential companies and careers in relation to my own personal values. I want a job where I will be able to grow and thrive, and if it is linked to something I am passionate about I am positive that I will. I am keen to attend more talks from people in the media industry, as I find these most relevant and eye opening, especially at this early stage, while I am unsure which media career I would be most interested in. These presentations provide in-depth insight to many different possibilities.