GOOD year, bad year? With 2014 drawing to a close, we ask Gordon Eldrett, marketing director at MediaCom Edinburgh: ‘How has it been for you?’.
Briefly, what is it that you do?
I’m the marketing director for the leading media planning and buying agency, MediaCom, in Scotland. I am responsible for our new business initiatives and I look after all outbound communications – including newsletters and publications – as well as organising events such as our MediaCom Explore conferences.
Choose three words that sum up 2014 (so far), from a professional point of view.
Challenging. Successful. Rewarding.
In 2013, what was your biggest ambition for 2014, and to what extent did you achieve it?
Over the last five years or so, I’ve been fortunate to experience a very rewarding personal and professional life and have found a level of contentment that I didn’t think I was cut out for! My only ambition for 2014 was to work hard and keep this general upward trajectory going. And, so far, so good.
How has 2014 (so far) been for you, personally?
It was a strange start to the year as I was suddenly faced with some big decisions that made me consider several aspects of my life, not least where I wanted my career to go over the next five years or so (anyone who knows me will tell you I usually struggle to comprehend what I am going to be doing in the next five months).
Despite it being quite stressful there was also something liberating about the process. Since then, it’s been a great year.
My children, despite being a huge financial and emotional burden, are also hilariously funny and definitely worth having around.
The big personal event of this year, however, was moving house. After ten years of living in our old flat we took the plunge and now live in a proper house which (all being well) should see us through until the children have ‘flown the nest’.
Any changes this year in technology, legislation, the economy, etc. that have had a relatively significant impact on the business?
Working in media, the pace of change is frightening. I got my first job in the industry in 1998 and the landscape today is unrecognisable from that time.
Technology is constantly creating new opportunities and the way we approach digital advertising is now more important than ever.
The ‘internet of everything’ is more or less here and formerly ‘static touchpoints’ suddenly have the potential to be responsive and create ‘return path data’.
For us, the crucial thing is being able to use that data while not losing sight of the real world that the numbers exist in. It is a really challenging time but also incredibly exciting.
What are you looking forward to, in 2015 – personally and professionally?
By nature, I am a pessimist and I don’t like to tempt fate but, that said, the signs for 2015 are so far quite good.
It’s always a challenge in a private sector company to consistently deliver the growth targets we are charged with but, with the team currently in place at MediaCom, we have probably never been in a better place to achieve our goals.
Personally, I’m looking forward to spending more time with my children over the course of the first summer we’ll have had in our own garden.
