Giffgaff x WeAreHere day
Giffgaff has joined forces with WeAreHere, a new collective connecting under-represented young people with opportunities in marketing, to help students explore future careers in the industry.
A cohort of Year 12 Professional Pathways students studying for a BTEC Extended Diploma in Business Studies at the Ark Elvin Academy, Wembley, joined the mobile network provider last week (31 October) for a whole day session.
After an address from Giffgaff CEO and WeAreHere co-founder Ash Schofield, marketing strategy and planning director Georgina Bramall talked the young people through the breadth of potential marketing careers, spanning 14 different disciplines from PR to media, insight and strategy.
Next marketers from across the team shared their career stories. The session was kicked off by Najma Mahmoud, a former The Marketing Academy Foundation apprentice, who was hired permanently by the mobile network as a social media executive after completing her qualification in April.
Mahmoud described getting interested in marketing while working at the Regent Street Cinema and after deciding to become an apprentice she was placed with Giffgaff, growing in confidence from submitting her first insights report to working on social strategy for the brand’s Big Brother sponsorship.
We’re giving them new tools and a platform to say: ‘It’s OK, whatever you think is relevant.’ It’s the start of, for them individually, realising their opinions really count.
Ash Schofield, Giffgaff
From aspiring rugby player to marketing boss, digital performance marketing lead Toby Gillatt gave the students an insight into how he joins the dots between a customer deciding they want a new phone and the moment of purchase. He was joined on stage by senior brand and advertising manager Nerissa Abrahams, one of Marketing Week’s 2023 Future Marketing Leaders.
Abrahams explained how she turned a weekend job at footwear retailer Office into work experience with the marketing team, progressing from a variety of agencies and brands into a leadership role at Giffgaff. Presenting the brand’s new campaign, she also discussed bringing influencers into the fold, including Capital Xtra presenters Chunkz and Sharky.
Providing a snapshot of the diverse careers within the industry, Gillatt, Abrahams and Mahmoud all emphasised there is no ‘perfect’ route into marketing.
The students were then asked to work with the Giffgaff marketers to devise and present a strategy to promote refurbished phones, before being given a masterclass on how to critique creative by Pablo London strategy director Summer Taylor and account executive Hamish Hay.
The students were asked to give a live critique of various ads, including Giffgaff’s latest campaign ‘Are you on Giffgaff or something?’ and ITV x Veg Power’s ‘Eat Them To Defeat Them’.
The programme was developed in close collaboration with Ark Elvin Academy to ensure the students gained practical skills that related directly to their syllabus.
‘Once in a lifetime’
For Schofield – a former CMO himself – the day offered a reciprocal opportunity to learn, with Giffgaff gaining as much from the experience as the young people.
“A question was posed to me a while back about what value is experience? When you really think about that question, you have to fess up that you don’t know everything and maybe other people have parts of the jigsaw you don’t have. In this context, today’s consumers, future leaders, young people have got part of that information,” he states.
Given the business was founded on the principle of mutuality, the CEO describes the event as a chance for Giffgaff to meet its audience on an even level, explaining young people have a valuable perspective and his team are keen to listen.
“We’re giving them new tools and a platform to say: ‘It’s OK, whatever you think is relevant.’ It’s the start of, for them individually, realising their opinions really count. From a Giffgaff perspective, it’s an opportunity to listen and as a result of some little spark or nugget we might change course on something.”
For the young people, the event gave them insight into what a marketing career might look like.
It’s quite a broad label ‘marketing’, it’s easy to think it’s just the thing you see on the TV or the stuff in your social feed.
Georgina Bramall, Giffgaff
While Ali, 17, and Fahima, 18, previously had little knowledge of marketing, both said the experience at Giffgaff made them consider the profession as a potential future career.
“I knew a bit about marketing because some of my family study it at uni, but I didn’t really know what it was,” Fahima explains. “Now I’ve seen what it’s about and I’ve spoken to a couple of the people who work here, maybe it’s something I want to do in the future.”
This opinion was shared by aspiring accountant Henry, 16, who was surprised to learn about the variety of roles within marketing.
“I didn’t really know much about marketing in the past. I really just wanted to become an accountant, because I like working with numbers. But now I know there’s numbers within marketing and there’s different types of marketing such as social media, it’s really interesting,” he explains, citing his approval of the Chunkz and Sharky tie-up.
All the students believe more brands should open their doors to young people. Describing the experience as “eye opening”, Ali was impressed by the fact a brand like Giffgaff is listening to him and his peers.
Young people invited to ‘co-create the future of marketing’
“We get to have an experience we would never know about,” he says. “We learn about it [marketing], but we never fully understand. Now that we’re here we see a day in the life.”
Fahima agrees that while she didn’t know much about the different disciplines within marketing before the event, learning more about the social media team, for example, makes her think a marketing career could be for her.
“It was a once in a lifetime experience and you never really get things like this, so it was a really great opportunity,” she adds.
Fahima also noted how Schofield spent the whole day interacting with the young people, with Henry describing the Giffgaff CEO as “so down to earth” and “really different” from what he expected from a senior leader.
A blueprint for success
The event was always going to be a great fit for Giffgaff, explains Bramall, given social mobility – and in a wider sense connecting people to their potential – is a major focus for the brand. The team jumped at the chance to “demystify marketing” for young people who might never have thought they could join the industry.
“It’s quite a broad label ‘marketing’, it’s easy to think it’s just the thing you see on the TV or the stuff in your social feed. Actually, there’s a whole operation. We counted 14 different disciplines ranging from PR to internal comms, media, insight, strategy,” Bramall notes.
“It’s a whole heap of disciplines working together with the ultimate aim of providing that better connection with the consumer.”
Explaining her belief that if marketing doesn’t effectively represent society it will fundamentally be harder for brands to connect with people, the event felt like a “natural opportunity” for Giffgaff to advance its social purpose and provide a blueprint for other brands joining the WeAreHere movement.
For any firm considering staging a similar event, Bramall suggests companies should decide what feels natural for them in the context of their business. What worked for Giffgaff was a blend of participation and scene setting, involving a variety of colleagues. Listening to the Ark Elvin Academy team about what was relevant for the students was essential.
It was a once in a lifetime experience and you never really get things like this, so it was a really great opportunity.
Fahima, Ark Elvin Academy
“What is it they need? What is it they’re craving?” she says. “We’re also lucky we can draw on some external agency partners. Pablo have been incredibly excited about joining. It’s finding those right people within your organisation who care.”
Bramall hopes the young people will “realise there is possibility”, having gained the confidence to think actively about what’s next for them professionally. Sharing career stories also shows there is no specific, linear route into marketing, she adds.
Reflecting on what the young people gained from the day, Schofield hopes they will have learnt a host of practical skills and attained a level of clarity about what a marketing career could look like.
“I make the point that we’ve probably got a generation that is more brand savvy than ever before, but that doesn’t mean that they’re marketing savvy. It’s starting to unpack that for them and what we’ve been able to do with the event is show the people behind the brand,” he explains.
‘Bring somebody else to the room’: Marketers on how to build a more inclusive industry
The hope is the students will recognise the diversity of thought and experience on show at Giffgaff and see a place for themselves within marketing.
From a wider WeAreHere perspective, the intention is to learn from this inaugural event and invite other brands to go on a similar journey. However, Schofield stresses that before any brand makes that commitment it needs to connect with the ‘Why?’
“As a marketer by trade, everything falls into a matrix for me. What we’re trying to do here is the right thing and along the axis is a value creation opportunity against a values-led decision making opportunity,” he states. “In that top right hand box is the right thing to do.”
The Giffgaff CEO argues that if brands want to have a positive impact on society, they need to talk to the people who matter and give them the skills to amplify their voice. The answer is the same if they want to remain relevant and create future value.
“You need to make sure you go one bit further, which is to increase the level of accessibility into the industry. I’d add to that a level of prestige about working in marketing. That it’s a great destination and young people – and their parents – need to understand that it’s a broad church,” Schofield explains.
“There are wonderful different career opportunities for a whole wealth of different skills. Marketing is a great destination and one that as a parent you can be proud your kids are involved with, and as a young person, super excited about where that might lead you.”
Marketing Week’s Opening Up campaign is pushing for the democratisation of marketing careers. Read all the articles from the series so far here.
