Meet Harry, Luma’s new kid on the block
There’s been some chopping and changing at Luma Towers in the first six months of 2024. One of those big changes has been the arrival of our new marketing executive, Harry Proudley.
If you’ve been working closely with us over the last few months, you’ll have no doubt seen Harry’s marketing chops first-hand. Brimming with cutting-edge know-how, Harry helps us deliver impactful results for our clients whilst helping them understand that impact through beautifully presented reports.
What better time than now to get to know the new kid on the block?
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
In my very formative years, Bob the Builder was always up there with the best of my Saturday Morning TV idols. After I’d turned eight, the Bob man had lost his lustre and I became far too cool to be caught singing, “Can we build it?”.
A bit further down the line in secondary school, I wanted to study architecture and even went so far as to do some work experience with Pozzoni in Altrincham. It didn’t stick though and it wasn’t long until I was bit by the marketing bug.
How did you get into marketing?
I studied Linguistics at university and focused on the science behind how minds communicate. In essence, any marketing output is a vehicle of communication, a middle-ground between two minds that’s open to interpretation. The idea of optimising that middle ground was a real draw for me. It’s an addictive little puzzle trying to crystallise that perfect message and also a fantastic outlet for my creativity.
Or maybe it's just cause I wanted to be Don Draper...
What do you like most about your job?
Although I’ve always been in B2B marketing, my experience has been in-house managing teams, so something I’m loving about the agency side is the sheer variety of our days. Literally, no hour is the same, let alone a given day of the week.
I love creating things, so being able to bring clients’ vision, mission and values to life and making them manifest with marketing assets is a lot of fun, especially with the diversity of our client base.
The built environment is also totally new and exciting to me, it’s been very welcoming and has a great social aspect. It really feels like everyone’s working together as a part of something bigger.
What's the most important aspect of a successful marketing campaign?
On a level, I’d say the most important aspect is actually how you define success. A bit of a cop out I know…but if a campaign flops entirely, that’s not to say there’s not a success to be gleaned from the resulting data.
There are a lot of campaigns out there at the minute with gorgeous creative and punchy copy, but a lot of them seem to be aimed at other marketers, and awards shortlists. Their coolness only really runs skin deep.
If it’s not measurable, what was the point of it in my mind, so measurement really is a key aspect. Qualitative or quantitative, you need to know your objectives going in and stick to them in the eventual KPIs report.
What keeps you busy outside of Luma HQ?
I’ve spun disco and house in a few venues in Brighton and I’m looking to pick that up again around Manchester. On the other side of the spectrum I’ve been challenging myself to keep a houseplant alive for longer than a couple of weeks and it’s not died on me yet.
Travelling along the spectrum even further, I’m also a big fan of the colour yellow, so sometimes I just sit and have a look at this big plain yellow panel I have at home.
When I’m not doing all that, I like to keep my skills sharp on the marketing front. I’m preparing for Webflow’s speed-build challenge next year and knocking out some web assets whenever I get a bit of downtime.