Gill Huber is Chief Client Officer at Posterscope. She has worked in the media industry for over twenty years. Prior to Posterscope, Gill was head of marketing and communications at Starcom MediaVest.
Who is your digital hero?
This is a tough one, so many greats have already been covered. But a brilliant one for me is Katie Vanneck-Smith, now Co-Founder of Tortoise Media who I have known for many years and seen move through News UK, the Telegraph, Dow Jones, publisher of WSJ and most recently co-founding Tortoise Media with the promise of building a different type of news room for slower, wiser news.
What has she done to win hero status in your eyes?
Katie has always challenged what is possible, what is needed and what could be done. Years ago she made the impossible possible with the launch of the paywall. This was at a time when nobody even wanted her to be right, let alone the tech not even really existing. She drove that from the start, stuck to her vision and didn’t allow barriers to get in her way.
Then the move from the corporate world, where she was incredibly successful and well established, to doing something really different and innovative, developing a new set of skills while still creating a quality product earns heroic status in my eyes. Importantly, Katie always talks in ‘human’, making the complicated simple, which is invaluable.
How has her heroism helped drive digital?
It is now normal to expect to pay for quality news online, and indeed content and subscriptions in a way we would not have envisaged 10 years ago. That would not have happened without The Times paywall. Katie is tenacious and always believed in the quality of the product that was being produced, and was confident people would be willing to pay for it.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
Fairness, transparency, trust. In news media the spread of misinformation, and in advertising, to clean up digital advertising so brands know what they’re buying, and consumers can control what they’re seeing, without being relentlessly followed by cookies.
For OOH, a subject close to my heart, it’s for brands to embrace the capabilities of digital ooh. The flexibility and agility of the medium is woefully underutilised at present, yet when dynamic, contextual, timely, targeted messages are used in OOH the results are on average 17% more impactful (including sales and awareness)
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital marketing?
I’m not sure there is such a thing as digital marketing anymore, everything is digital in some form or other now, and I say that from an OOH perspective too despite the prevalence and strength of paper and paste.
In terms of being an OOH specialist, I see it as my job not just to promote our business but the medium too. I don’t know if its heroic, but I’ve worked really hard over the past few years to collaborate and work with clients, creative and media agencies and media owners to communicate the undeniable effectiveness of ever expanding capabilities of digital out of home.
And pre-Coronavirus it was one of the fastest growing mediums in the world. I’ll be continuing my crusade because, classic and digital out of home have much to offer clients during these difficult times in terms of reaching and engaging the population.
On a more personal level, it’s my mission to continue to champion gender diversity and drive the push for a more inclusive workplace. As part of that I am a member of WACL; whose purpose is to accelerate gender equality in the industry; this is something we do through inspiration, support and importantly campaigning.
