Katie Hunter recently sat down with us to shed some light on her role here at OMD UK, as well as how she ended up at the agency and how it compares to her previous experiences.
Hi Katie – thanks for your time today. Can you explain a bit about your role here?
One of the most interesting things about being part of the Social and Content team here at OMD UK is how varied the day-to-day of my role is. As social and online media is evolving so quickly, the ways that we work with brands, platforms and (most importantly for me) influencers is constantly changing and growing, which means that it’s about developing new ways to activate effective campaigns and ensure that we’re always looking at the next thing.
In a nutshell, my role is about working with clients to amplify their campaigns through influential people and sites online. Whether that’s a Viner with millions of followers, YouTubers and their video content, or bloggers and websites through editorial and events.
How did you end up at OMD UK, having spent the majority of your career at PR agencies? And how does it compare?
Although the majority of my career experience was in more traditional PR, the importance of social has been growing at pace for a number of years and is something I’ve always had a real interest in. When I started out in beauty PR nine years ago, social media channels and blogs rarely factored into a brand’s PR plan, whereas in the last 3-4 years they’ve become crucial to a successful campaign. The speed that things are changing in the online landscape fascinates me, and so the move to OMD UK was really about working in an agency where I could use previous PR experience within social and wider media. After years of working with media and ad agencies, I wanted to be involved in more than just the amplification bit and the move to an integrated agency like OMD UK was the perfect opportunity to do that.
What does a typical day look like for you?
It’s a clichéd thing to say, but typical days can be a bit thin on the ground! Much of what I do is about working with the strategists and planners to identify opportunities to bring influencer amplification into a campaign in a way that makes sense, is exciting and will help to add value. This means a lot of brainstorming and planning sessions with and without the client, as well as a lot of research into the best people and methods to activate ideas. My team also works a lot with SEO clients and community management accounts and so there is a lot of daily management and reacting to news to bring in additional content and stories where we can.
We also work a lot with agents and directly with talent and influencers, and so quite a big part of my job is making sure we’re involving them and coming up with exciting ideas collaboratively as much as we can.
What excites you most about your job?
That changes weekly at the moment but that is one of the things that makes our job so interesting. The fact that there are a lot of different components means that we can really make the work we do and ideas we have more inspiring for us, selfishly, and recently projects for Disney and Walkers have been really fun to activate.
As a relatively new team, it’s also really exciting to be partly responsible for growing and developing what we have to offer to the wider agency and our clients. Pitching and recommending ideas that are unfamiliar or new, and not only happen, but are a success is really rewarding and makes the next venture even more fun to plan. Working with so many different teams and people here at OMD UK is also a real perk as you get insight into so many different parts of the wider business and learn a lot about other disciplines. Knowing that my job will probably have evolved again in a few months and there’ll be a world of other influencers, tactics, platforms and ideas for us to work with means there’s always something else to look forward to and keep us interested!
