Clare Beddow is Commercial Director, UK at Miq. With over 20 years experience in the media industry, Clare has worked across a variety of disciplines for companies such as Spotify, Channel 5, Global Radio, Microsoft, AoL and Oath.
Who is your digital hero?
This was a really hard one, I have many digital heroes for different reasons, but if I had to pick one, it would be Martin Galvin, co-founder of Calm Media Investment, formally Commercial Strategy Director at GroupM.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
Galv is one of the calmest (no pun intended), modest and most sensible partners I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Often being one of the only women in a Commercial Trading room, I have countless examples of being overlooked and undermined over the years.
Galv was one of the first trading partners I dealt with that truly made me feel equal and respected, a thoroughly decent gent and one who changed the face of commercial trading in my eyes!
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
Galv has helped open the door to diversity in commercial trading. He has mentored, challenged and been a true ally; surely more diversity is a good thing for everyone?
More diverse faces, yes, but also more diversity of thought – so important for our industry.
What is the biggest challenge in digital we need another hero to solve?
Helping brands move beyond traditional buying and commercial trading for TV. Why? Already today 40% of TV viewers watch little to no actual linear TV, yet TV still takes up the bulk of marketing investment and quite honestly it just doesn’t make any sense.
It’s something that MiQ is trying to solve through our TV Intelligence Platform by creating a holistic view of TV viewing and advertising across linear, streaming and YouTube, but it will take a while to convince some advertisers to move their budgets away from where they’ve spent them for decades. Diversification is key.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
I’m still working on it. I’ve been a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic for over 30 years and it wasn’t until I had my children (and 2 high-risk pregnancies) that I started openly talking about the effects of diabetes on my everyday life.
A recent study found that diabetics make over 180 health related decisions every single day, on top of general day to day decisions. I could talk for hours about the ‘side-effects’ of living with an incurable illness (but I’ll save that for another time), my plan is to set up a network of individuals in our industry who fight hidden illnesses every day, to both raise awareness (very important for managers and colleagues) but also to provide a support network for one another – more to come on that (and please get in touch if you’re interested in playing a part)…!
