In our latest Spotlight On Q&A, we speak to our new Head of Client Services Emma Cranston
Hot on the heels of our announcement about the appointment of Emma Cranston as our new Head of Client Services, Emma talks to us about why she chose to join Ozone to lead our rather fabulous and exceptionally talented Client Services team…
Hi Emma, you join Ozone with a huge amount of agency experience having worked at Manning Gottlieb OMD and Carat. In what can’t have been an easy decision to leave agency-world, what made you choose to join Ozone?
The Ozone Project really stood out as a company I wanted to work for because our core values are very much aligned.
I have worked within publishing for almost 17 years. During this time, I have seen the premium market become challenged by the arrival of the big tech players. While these tech platforms may have taken the lion’s share of digital budgets, Ozone provides advertisers and agencies with a real alternative with competitive scale, underpinned by great quality content - all delivered in a trustworthy and transparent way. Not everyone can say that!
I am determined to help Ozone focus on its goal of becoming a true platform alternative, ensuring advertiser investment ends up in a place where it can make a real difference to campaign success.
Managing client relationships play a pivotal role in our industry. What do you consider are the most important aspects of delivering exceptional client service and how might you see Ozone’s evolve?
Exceptional customer service is listening to clients’ needs and delivering on them, working through the task in hand together and learning from every campaign to make the next one even more successful. To do this, the sales, ad operations and client services teams need to work closely together, share learning and produce insightful, actionable data. I will be coming to Ozone with an agency lens and can offer a view on what agencies and clients want plus the services we can provide to make their campaigns perform exceptionally through data driven results.
Ozone is two years young now; they shouldn’t be viewed as a start up anymore. I see us evolving by having the best-in-class client service and being the top of the list when clients and agencies are compiling media plans.
The pandemic has changed so much about the way that we work, with video calls especially now firmly established. Thinking about how you managed your own client relationships during lockdown, what has worked well, what do you wish would disappear, and what can’t you wait to start doing again?
Despite working from home, I believe our teams at MGOMD worked closer together than ever before and clients recognised this through our joined-up responses and the brilliant (and at times award-winning) work that was produced.
People are so busy with video meetings that we are now having to schedule time just to have a phone call! Why can’t we just pick up the phone and call them like we used to? Hopefully that will return when we come out of the pandemic and there are less video calls in our diaries.
I cannot wait to be able to work face to face again! Being behind a screen makes it challenging to build relationships, impossible to act on conversations that you might otherwise have overheard between work colleagues, and most importantly; be fully aware of the mental health of team members.
I also really miss going to the pub with the team.
Looking ahead, six months from now, what would you like our customers to be saying about their experience of working with Ozone?
I want customers to view us as a partner and to work collaboratively to help achieve their goals. I would like them to be reaping the rewards of being within premium digital environments using a wealth of data and sophisticated analytics tools to reach their target audiences. Also, I look forward to them recognising that you don’t need to be buying inventory at next to nothing to achieve long lasting cost-effective results.
And finally, beyond your exceptional client servicing experience, what other special talents are you planning to bring to the Ozone party?
Positivity and FUN!
