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Bryn Snelson
Marketing Director and Director of International – SportPursuit
Ben Somerset-How
Client Director Creativebrief
Tom Holmes, creativebrief Founder & Chairman, talks to Bryn Snelson, Marketing Director and Director of International at SportPursuit and Marketing Academy 2011 alumnus.
Bryn loves working with small groups of talented people to launch, grow and expand new businesses. He has spent his career either trying to do that, or building the skills to help him do that.
He started life as a Strategy Consultant at OC&C Strategy Consultants, advising corporates and private equity companies on high level mid-to-long term strategy. He wanted to learn how to analyse businesses and understand what makes them successful on a high level.
He then dabbled in entrepreneurship, founding a mobile startup, before joining eHarmony in 2009 as part of the UK launch team. That’s where he got his marketing exposure, initially as Head of Digital Marketing, then as Marketing Director and finally as UK MD. He now leads Marketing and International at SportPursuit, a 2.5yr old company growing extremely quickly, which is where he loves to be.
Along the way he was chosen to be a Marketing Academy Scholar, which he says was a fantastic programme.
creativebrief: Why did you choose a career in marketing?
Bryn Snelson: I didn’t really. I like building things first and foremost; “white space” opportunities where windows of opportunity exist to build new companies or services. Marketing is such a big part of that. It’s a vital skillset if you want to grow companies.
creativebrief: What do you think makes a successful career in marketing?
Bryn Snelson: It’s virtually impossible to answer that question in 2014. At the extreme ends of what is termed as marketing the skillsets are virtually unrecognisable. If you want to be a stellar digital performance marketer, you need to be extremely numerically driven, somewhat geeky and have a highly logical brain that spots patterns and trends. If you want to be successful in a creative agency or FMCG for example you need to have fantastic consumer insight/understanding and a highly developed intuition about creative campaigns. It’s just very different.
creativebrief: And who is a great example of this?
Bryn Snelson: I can’t say I know anyone personally, but anyone who has managed to get to equal proficiency in those two ends of the spectrum. I think if you can get to a decent standard in both it’s very powerful.
creativebrief: What do you think are the main challenges facing marketers today?
Bryn Snelson: The high level challenge is still the same as it’s always been. The bottom line is that you are responsible for delivering and retaining new customers to your business, both in the short and long term. What’s changed is that the methods are far more varied and some of them are very complex. If you want to become a Marketing Director or CMO the challenge is getting enough meaningful exposure to all of them.
creativebrief: How do you keep up with constant stream of innovation in marketing comms?
Bryn Snelson: Look outside. The answer rarely comes from inside. I try to find time to meet people, agencies, consultants etc who seem to be doing interesting work in a certain area. You don’t have to take all the advice, but it keeps your ear to the ground. Also develop a network of peers. The proof in the pudding is always whether someone else has made something work at scale. Very often you’ll hear about the latest thing, and when you phone your peers the truth is that nobody has got it to work yet.
creativebrief: How does this impact your relationship with agencies?
Bryn Snelson: I think it makes for healthy tension. I like agencies who help you stay abreast of the latest trends, but they will know a good client will apply a degree of sceptical filtering. What is important is for your agency to understand how important trying new things is to your business. For some businesses it’s right to lead, for others it’s right to follow and your agency should know which you are.
creativebrief: How do you know if you’re getting the best from your agencies?
Bryn Snelson: In the same way you do with any of your own employees. Treat people like human beings, treat them as partners and show them an appropriate level of trust. If you do that, I think agencies will respond with great work. The numbers will tell the story of whether you’re getting good work, so people aren’t often in any doubt if things are going well or not.
creativebrief: Of your recent work, what makes you particularly proud and why?
Bryn Snelson: We recently hit 1 million members at SportPursuit. That makes us one of the country’s largest clubs for sports enthusiasts. For a small startup of only 45 people we’re very proud of that.
creativebrief: How do you think marketers can raise the profile of marketing within their organisations?
Bryn Snelson: Do great work and deliver great numbers. Then tell people about it. I think it really is as simple as that.
creativebrief: Do you see yourself as a generalist or a specialist, does it matter?
Bryn Snelson: I consider myself a generalist and yes, I think it does matter. People have to know why you’re there and what they should expect from you. The clearer you are about that, the more successful you’ll be.
creativebrief partner the Marketing Academy is a non-profit organisation which provides a unique forum for industry leaders, marketing gurus, entrepreneurs and inspirational people volunteer their time to inspire, develop and coach the next generation of future leaders. The Marketing Academy gift a maximum of 30 ‘Scholarships’ each year to the fastest rising stars in the marketing, advertising and communications industries. A team of high profile mentors and coaches develop these stars through a process of mentoring, coaching, networking and personalised learning. 86 mentors, 30 Coaches, 20 Judges, 36 companies and an owl called Merlin all provide their time, resources and knowledge to assist in shaping the minds of our future leaders. Furthermore as a vital part of their curriculum all Scholars volunteer at least one day per year through our Donate28 initiative to work with charities who need bright young marketing minds. For a full list of the individuals involved, see the Sherilyn Shackell interview.
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