Charles Cadbury, CEO at audio advertising company Say It Now has a digital career spanning over two decades, so we asked who his digital hero is.
Who is your digital hero?
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
We met on Twitter in 2009. Well, I was looking for new agencies to pitch to and I noticed that his agency ‘We Are VI’ were hosting a Tweetup called Ale 2.0.
A kind of anti-networking event. No pitches, ‘just a load of people who worked in digital and liked real ale’. The two years of monthly Ale 2.0 events I attended thereafter built out my friendship and admiration of Tom as a hero as he did things differently.
A nice human which allowed people to gravitate to him. The hero worship had begun…
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
He’s genuinely interested. He has created platforms for holding conversations in a public forum (he loves to be on stage).
He’s a creative thinker and uses that to get influential people to think differently and consider new working practices.
What the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
Consumer adoption or the echo chamber.
As digital practitioners we should all be well ahead of the curve and that can work to our detriment. What is obvious behaviour for us is often not the behaviour elicited by our target markets. We either need to find a hero to get the people to catch up with our visionary ideas or find a way to temper our visionary egos.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
I thought this was all about Tom? Global Media First Actionable Audio Campaign for Berocca Boost earlier this year. Getting my entire family into Campaign with the campaign video.
My wife Maria secured that project so perhaps she’s my real hero…
