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Christine Armstrong - B2B PR

Christine Armstrong joined worldwide advertising agency network BBDO five years ago, and is now their Director of Communications and Talent.

BBDO is one of the world’s biggest network of advertising, marketing and communications agencies. According to Wikipedia they have 17,200 employees in 287 offices in 77 countries – which poses quite a communications challenge, internally and externally.

We spoke to Christine about her career in communications and her role at BBDO, and took the opportunity to find out a little about how an advertising agency works.

By Zubair Ahmed

Tell me about how you got into PR?

I fell into communications. I loved English and politics at school. When I left the University Of York, with a politics degree, I didn’t know what to do but decided I needed some experience and started at Conservative Central Office as an intern in the library.

And then?

While working as an intern, I met someone who told me I had the skills to be a lobbyist. I wasn’t sure it was a compliment! I joined [lobbyists] APCO UK and was there for almost eight years during which time I worked in the US, Canada and did an exchange to our Asian offices. I worked in Washington DC for almost three years before [PR head hunters] Taylor Bennett called about the job at BBDO.

What is your role at BBDO?

My title is Director of Communications and Talent.

Is that your first role there?

When I first joined I was involved in communications, PR and internal communications.

The role has evolved to include leading our regular global research reports – most recently into Generation X [consumers born between 1967 and 1977] and how people are changing their spending due to the downturn. These reports are used to help clients, to engage new business and to generate PR coverage.

I am also responsible for moving talent internationally and as such I work closely with BBDO University, our in-house training programme.

Many people in PR are interested in the related sector of advertising. Can you tell me how an advertising company like BBDO is structured?

There are three main roles:

Creatives – who translate the strategy of a campaign into creative approaches.
Account managers – who handle the client and the process of producing an ad.
Planners – who are strategists, they interrogate the data and create the brief on which the creative is based.

As a grad, it’s a lot easier to move between being a planner and an account manager. Creatives tend to be born as such and know it long before they start work.

How does BBDO get its creatives?

We hire from good colleges and from elsewhere the industry. Our Creative Directors and their teams lead this process.

In your opinion, what do you think is the difference between advertising and PR?

With advertising you largely get to control the message you communicate. In PR you work to engage the attention of a third party first.

Back to your role, what happens in a typical day for a communications and talent manager?

It varies from day to day. My husband tries for a ‘no BlackBerry policy’ in the house so the first thing that I do when I leave is switch it on. Then I start replying to messages while I am on the train. My team often know when I get off the train because they get deluged with emails! My week includes an array of different activities … presenting research to clients or agencies, working on the alignment on our intranets, writing speeches or articles, meeting journalists, attending CEO meetings, reviewing work, driving new pieces of research.

How do you handle internal communications in such a huge company?

We have an excellent intranet called BBDO Now. We have a small central team – which I am part of – to help our various agencies deliver the best work for their clients. When we work on international research pieces we invite our agencies to be involved and collate the ideas of those that choose to be a part of it.

What’s the best thing about working for BBDO?

It’s one the most creative agency network in the world and it had great people values.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The variety of work and people, and the international work.

What the worst thing about your job?

Budgets and negotiating contracts.

What do you look for when hiring a graduate or someone looking to start out in the industry?

The head of our Italian offices describes it as looking for the ‘light behind their eyes’. Which translates into someone who is enthusiastic and passionate about the business.

What are you opinions on the issues of diversity in the communications industry and how do you think they should be tackled?

It is definitely something that should be talked about more. A broader mix of people would give us more insight into the wider world and make us better at what we do. As an industry we should embrace people with a more diverse array of backgrounds we need to increase awareness among ethnic minorities and let them that this is an industry which offers exciting roles.

Quick Fire Questions

Uggs or Leather boots: Leather

Online or Shops: Shops

Interesting fact not currently on the internet: I went to school in Saudi Arabia