Leah Davis: leader of year?

A sneak peak at who's in the running to be Marketing Leader of The Year 2017 - we interview Leah Davis, Head of Marketing, Team GB The time difference with Rio was a massive challenge – how did you overcome it? We focussed on building our fan engagement story before the Games started. When the Games began we moved into real-time storytelling and 24/7 reporting – from trackside updates, to behind the scenes insights, daily previews and reviews analysing and celebrating the team’s success – we delivered the story of Team GB at the Rio Games around the clock. For key medal moments, we created buzz during the day using tactical hashtags - #UpatthreeforAdamPeaty building tribal support for fans to stay up until 3am for Adam Peaty’s first gold medal, or #KnightRider for Bradley Wiggins’ momentous event which saw him crowned as the most decorated Olympian. This encouraged people to stay up to support the team despite anti-social timings! What advice would you give other brands looking to use storytelling techniques to rally an audience behind a cause? Storytelling sits at the heart of our marketing strategy. Having a brand narrative and story to tell throughout the year ensures that we have an ongoing engaged audience. The Team GB brand essence of ‘everyday people achieving extraordinary things’ is the key to why Team GB athletes are so admired. Our fans feel an affinity to the athletes and want to get to know them. Never forget the importance of good old-fashioned brand insight and positioning, know who you are and excel in your core brand offering. Marketing changes, consumer behaviours change, but building a brand proposition based on a good insight with creative delivery is timeless. What does bold marketing leadership look like? Having the desire to continually learn and evolve with the times while empowering a team to be the best that they can be. A good leader will have the courage to listen to the customer and boldly follow their interests at every stage, even if it means forging new routes and methods to deliver an experience. Having the courage and conviction in your own decisions even in the absence of research or data is a trait seen in the best marketers of our era. What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done at work? Proudly supporting Ireland during the six nations every year, much to the dismay of my Team GB colleagues. What’s the hardest part of your job? At Games time, staying focussed on the task in hand. There are so many opportunities that arise late in the day and with limited resource we sometimes have to turn them down Control your attention and don’t let your head be turned by last minute additions if they aren’t central to your strategy. What advice would you give others earlier in their career looking to become successful marketing leaders? Some of the best people in the industry that I know and look up to came from agency backgrounds. Agencies can often provide the best training and varied experience as you start off in your career so even if you think the brand or client world is your calling, don’t underestimate the value of a well-trained agency background. What’s the biggest challenge facing you in the year ahead? Understanding how digital transformation can work best for our business. The digital opportunities in the sporting landscape are endless. The task is to ensure that we can add value in areas that deliver the best return. Understanding the changing behaviours of our fans and customers has become an increasingly complex process and one which we are embracing with new methods of segmentation, profiling and targeted communications. Looking to the future, what will the marketing department look like in five years’ time? The winners of tomorrow will be those who take brave strides based on strong data, good insights and a customer-centric strategy. Well collected and well managed metadata which allows a brand to enhance a consumer’s experience will be the holy grail for brands and services in the future. Brands that can combine a focused brand insight with robust CRM which embraces new technology are those who are leading the evolution.