Editorial Articles

The technical recruitment team at Propel London recently placed Alex Matthews at Dare Digital, as Head of Technology. He’s worked on digital campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands, but wasn’t always destined for a career in online marketing.

What were your early career aspirations?
Apart from wanting to be a train driver around the age of 10, I was always fascinated by the weather and wanted to do something involving this. I didn’t quite have the correct A-Levels to do a straight meteorology degree so I settled on my degree choice of “Environmental Science of the Earth and Atmosphere” as a next best option.

Where did your interest in digital come from?
My dad brought home a ZX81 from work when I was about 9 years old and then we got our own Oric (no-one’s heard of them, we should have got a ZX Spectrum!) which I started writing little games on. It all stemmed from there.

What were your early career goals, and how have you gone about pursuing them?
Apart from wanting to work at the Meteorological Office initially, which I did after leaving Uni, I’ve not really had a career goal. Instead, each time I thought that I’d gone as far as I could in a job, I had a look around for what might be the next step in my career. Sometimes I’ve wished that there was a career advisor (like you got at school) but generally I’ve just jumped at roles that look challenging or different.

What would you consider to be your career’s defining moment so far?
About seven years ago my then MD and I stepped out of the offices of a mobile marketing platform supplier. Their platform couldn’t implement all the ideas that we had for mobile marketing campaigns. He turned to me and said “you could build that system in a weekend, couldn’t you?”

So I went off and in a weekend had a simple SMS platform up and running which we then developed and redeveloped over the next 6 years – this freed us up from the constraints of other platforms and meant we could be driven by ideas and not by technology.

What does your new job at Dare involve?
I’m responsible for the Technical team at Dare and the technical delivery of projects for a range of our clients – Vodafone, Sony Ericsson, Standard Life, and Premier Inn. This means being closely involved with the account management, planning and concepting teams to advise on what can be delivered and how, as well as being involved in the delivery of campaigns with the project management team to troubleshoot any issues that arise.

What changes have you seen in the industry since your career began?
The digital world is using the same basic technologies as it was 10 years ago – HTML, databases, CSS etc.

What’s changed is the consumer’s access to these technologies. Digital information is now available anytime, anyplace and people want constant access to it.

It’s the enablement of this access through better broadband provision and the boom of the mobile internet that I think has been the biggest change for consumers, brands and agencies over the past ten years. I love my phone; I’d be lost without it. It does everything, holds everything and connects me to everything.

Which websites, apps and digital campaigns do you admire most?
For the combination of usability, quality, technology, innovation and astounding depth of content, it’s pretty hard to beat the BBC website. There are plenty of “cooler” sites, but I think the BBC site rules.

Speaking of cool sites, I also really like Dare’s BMW Z4 augmented reality site.

My current favourite iPhone apps are Talking Carl and Angry Birds. The Trainline app is well done too. On Android, apps like Google Sky Map and Layar are a great use of the latest smart phone technology.

What advice would you give to people looking to make a career for themselves in digital?
Don’t pigeonhole yourself in the “techie” box – get out there, force yourself into meetings with clients, concepting sessions with creatives and status meetings with account managers. Make sure you’re involved in the bigger campaign picture, not just your own 1000 lines of code.

If you’re looking to advance your digital career working with a creative agency like Dare, or at a leading brand, then please contact Emma McNamara at Propel London on 0207 440 1002, or email emma@propellondon.com.