Having joined the agency as a grad six years ago, Rhian Feather talks to us about the world of XMP and her role in it, as well as her top three moments at OMD UK to date.
Hi Rhian – can you tell us a little bit about your role as an XMP Associate Director? What does your job entail?
My role as an XMP Associate Director is a mixture of all sorts of things that I can throw myself into at OMD UK, from annual planning documents and long-term frameworks to working on new business pitches, supporting the partnership team and answering those tricky media questions from around the building! Key to me being able to tackle all of the above, it is crucial that I am in touch with all advancements in technology (both delivery and measurement) and up to date with the ever-changing media landscape, a full-time job in itself! In short, my job is a complete mixed bag, in all the good ways, with any number of things keeping me on my toes, with client work and projects designed to make us all think differently at OMD UK.
What does XMP actually mean?
XMP is another great media three letter acronym and stands for cross-media planning. The XMP team ensures that the distribution of our ideas is as rigorously audience-centric as their creation. It helps our clients address the flow of audiences through media brands and across media platforms, as well as the increasing use of real customer data in media planning, via programmatic. The team combines rigorous in-channel thinking with a clear understanding of how each of the channels work together – essentially working with all departments within the agency, at all stages in the planning cycle to deliver a full media plan based on a client’s key KPIs.
We heard you helped organise our Graduate programme, Knowledge Express. How did that come about and what did it involve?
After being invited to help, I could not stop myself from saying yes to organising the Knowledge Express. Having started at OMD UK as a grad myself and the programme being so key to my understanding of media, I knew I wanted to help future bright sparks in media get up to speed.
This year we shook up some of the lectures as the speed of change within both OMD and in media had meant that since last year the set up was not quite right, a difficult feat given that the content of some of the lectures is continuously changing! Luckily we had a great team of planners from across the agency to help with getting it all off the ground, which proved invaluable as we had planned over 25 lectures and immersion days and, of course the highlight of the course, the pitch week. I was lucky enough to watch a couple of the pitches and it was a gratifying experience to see those who had only been in the company, and media (some for only 8 weeks), be able to confidently talk about all areas of media to deliver such polished presentations.
What’s your proudest moment at OMD UK to date?
Having been here for six years, and worked in a couple of departments, I have distilled them down to the top three…
- Being pivotal in the Google and JC Decaux partnership of the now digitised Old Street Roundabout. With Google being new to OMD UK it was a conversation that needed to be driven by supporting numbers matching the geographical “silicon valley” to Google’s Campus activity. Having it renewed for a second year is just great!
- Having established an AV planning process which is being rolled out internally and also into the wider Omnicom group
- Finally, and very recently, evolving my role in XMP into the first of its kind at OMD UK, to encompass all of the above and also to manage the more granular digital aspects of the Boots account.