JWT Folk is a leading advertising agency with over 30 clients, including Vodafone, Brennans, Circle K, Nestlé and Littlewoods. Laura Daley the company's managing director talks to Donna Ahern about why JWT Folk's strength is in creating ideas that join, shape or start a conversation with the audience its clients want to engage with
JWT Folk's strength is in 'creating ideas that join, shape or start a conversation with the audience its clients want to engage with'.
"Examples of this being the ‘Team of Us’ campaigns that we have developed for Vodafone and our ‘Welcome Home’ Christmas campaigns for Brennans," Daly says.
"In our first two years as JWT Folk we have won key pieces of business, including Dale Farm, Kraft Heinz, Bord Gais Energy and Horse Racing Ireland, to name but a few."
"We have also won a number of international awards (Cannes Lions and Clio) that recognise our work for our long standing client An Post, as well as national awards, including the Best OOH campaign award for Brennans at the Checkout National FMCG Awards 2019."
How would you describe your role?
With the rest of the leadership team, I develop and drive the strategic direction and growth plan for our agency.
I manage several key workstreams and departments, such as new business development and our production hubs, and I also stay very hands on in managing several of our clients’ accounts.
What do you enjoy most about your current job?
It is rewarding knowing what a positive impact our work can have on our clients and how it can be a real driver of growth for their business, as well as impacting behavioural change.
I love the energy that you feel walking into a creative environment and I’m lucky to work with such ambitious, talented, and diverse colleagues and clients every day.
What is your advice to people starting out in the industry?
Learn the fundamentals first and get into an intern programme, either on the client or agency side, or ideally both, to really understand where your passion lies.
There are so many new roles within the industry in recent years, so you need to stay curious and be adaptable to the pace of change.
Gain a strong understanding of the commercial aspects and be willing to collaborate and work as a team. If you can, gain a good mentor along the way to help guide and shape your talent.
What do you think the government could do to help business in the current climate?
Brexit is an area of concern for many cross-border brands that we work with and the brands with parent companies in the UK.
A negative trade agreement between the UK and Europe could have a severe knock on economic impact on Ireland in terms of consumer confidence.
Continued guidance and support from government to support new indigenous brands to become a commercial success at home and abroad is also important.
Separately, hiring, training and retaining employees can be both challenging and costly.
Industry bodies are doing trojan work to encourage more people to pursue a career in the sector.
However, we need the macro landscape to be attractive enough to keep them at home in the first place!
What three business people do you most admire, and why?
Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder for revolutionising our media consumption habits.
Michael O Leary, Ryanair - for completely disrupting the air travel industry and democratising it for so many people.
Steve Jobs, Apple - while he may not have been the first to merge design and technology, he brought it to levels of success never seen before, and the advertising and marketing of his products was just as ground-breaking as the products themselves, with 1984 being one of the most iconic ads of all time.
What advertising campaign have you most enjoyed in recent months?
Google’s ‘Loretta’. It features the 85-year-old grandfather of a Google employee and tells the story of him using his Google Assistant to help remember his wife.
The film demonstrates how easy their technology is to use and does so in a really emotive way.
I highly recommend watching it, if you haven’t already.
What was your favourite grocery brand when you were growing up, and why?
It has to be Brennans Bread.
The smell of toast wafting from the kitchen every morning when I was growing up still evokes lovely warm memories and it tastes just as good today as it did back then.
The brand has maintained that nostalgia factor by building deep emotional connections with customers, while also finding new ways of meeting the modern customers’ needs.
Who would come to your ideal dinner party (living or dead)?
My dream dinner party guests would be Roddy Doyle, Mary Robinson, David Attenborough and Ed Sheeran.
Roddy, because he wrote the books of my young adulthood, David, because he gave us such an insightful education regarding nature and the impact of climate change, Mary, because she is an inspirational woman, having achieved so much as an ambassador for our country, and Ed Sheeran, because he has such an amazing voice and would definitely get the party started!
In association with Retail Staffing
© 2020 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Donna Ahern. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
