James Dawkins
PPC Account Exec
Rumour has it you were captain of the football team at university, do you think of yourself as a natural leader?
I think the leadership comes from a desire to get things done. I know that unless I book holidays or organise events etc. nothing ever gets done between me and my friends, which probably says as much about how lazy they are as it does about my natural leader instincts. I enjoy the pressure of being in charge and having to make difficult decisions (dropping your friends from the starting team is never easy) and combined with my passion for football, captaincy was a great fit.
What drew you towards the wonderful world of digital marketing?
Digital marketing is known to be an ever-changing landscape and it seemed a great place to start a career due to the many directions it can take you in. It was also a market that I massively underestimated. When you think of the largest companies in the world, Amazon, Facebook and Google are always going to be major players in the discussion and Digital Marketing is where they make the money to justify that.
What’s the best fancy dress outfit you’ve ever worn?
A couple of bad ones here. I’ve done a James Dean ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ look for the theme character names beginning with J; a very bad Men In Black costume for a ‘superhero’ theme (yes I am aware that they do not classify as superheroes) but my favourite costume was a very poor (but cheap) Lederhosen costume for the Otley run pub crawl in Leeds. What made this stand out for me was when a friend of mine came in the same outfit (not planned). We were often told we looked alike and were both quite tall so for him to have the exact same costume on when we turned up was inevitable.
James (right) in his trademark Lederhosen
What’s the one best thing about working in PPC?
Using as much data as possible to justify decisions and communicating this to clients. Having studied Maths & Statistics at University, I knew that to truly engage with my career I would need to stimulate my brain with as many metrics and figures as possible. PPC is a great opportunity to do this as there really isn’t any better way of making decisions but to delve into the numbers and find what is working and what is not.
What’s your spirit animal?
Not a unique answer but it would have to be a cat. I have three at home and I love to watch them interacting in the garden with each other and other wildlife. Their inquisitive nature combined with their often-comical mishaps and love for sleep is why I believe they are my spirit animal. They are also fiercely independent, just like the TIPi group.
