Marketing Consultant

Q&A with Thomas Mould

What is your job title?

CX Services Strategic Consultant, EMEA at Oracle

What does your job involve?

It may not seem obvious from my job title (!,) but I am a consultant specialising in Marketing for business-to-business companies. I typically work with my clients to design and optimise their marketing strategies to drive success, improved effectiveness, and increased efficiencies.

What does it look like on an average day?

An average day will usually consist of calls or meetings with clients, my colleagues and deliverable work, as agreed with the client, depending on the project I would be working on at the time. My work is usually project based, so often I run workshops with my clients as fact gathering discovery and apply creative thinking on how to improve the task in which they wish to address.

What qualifications and experiences enabled you to achieve your current position?

My current work may not seem creative on the surface or that my creative qualifications or experiences help but I would argue the contrary. I was first drawn to Marketing as I felt at the time (and I still do) that it is the most creative discipline in business.

My film studies background has been vital in how I approach my work. Learning the techniques of storytelling, understanding audience, and effective communication practices, has grounded my knowledge in Marketing as a discipline. It is creative but not necessarily obvious on the surface, as it is commercially driven. A creative way of thinking has certainly helped me when in meetings with more traditional business thinkers.

The real visual creativity in marketing is traditionally around elements of branding but I would certainly argue that the creative skills required in creating business collateral, video content and online visuals, have really underpinned how marketing content is consumed in today’s modern market place. Companies without these skills or not investing in them, are starting to find that they are being left behind by their competitors.

Media Studies A-Level Thurston Community College

Film Studies (BA Hons) University of Gloucestershire

Any advice for aspiring creative students?

Advice I would go back and tell my younger self:

Do not have the outdated point of view that business is not creative. It has to be. History has always had creative visuals as part of success for business in the past and the ever-changing technological world we live in means that it will always require creatives to play a part in any future success.

Take inspiration from everywhere. I find that my best thinking often comes out of finding inspiration in things I do not know anything about or usually wouldn’t be interested in. Who would have thought that I found a way of expressing some important data in a business meeting from a computer game recently or that I found architecture an interesting way of understanding how to have a distinct voice whilst also meeting strict requirements? Broaden your horizons – it’s a fun thing to do!

Everything is a process. Understand that things develop and shape over time. Some of my best creative work (both in and out of my job) start as one idea and end as something totally different. Once you learn to embrace the journey, you will be surprised at what you can do.

Be collaborative. Share, validate, inspire, criticise, enjoy, and celebrate both your own and other people’s work. Work on things with people you know inside out and total strangers. You and your work will develop to great things if you do.