Teads Manchester is the advertising technology firm’s second office in the UK focusing on media distribution and creative work for video, viewable display and performance advertising.
Launched in 2017 the business boasts a full-service offering to the company’s client and agency partners based outside of the capital.
Regional Director, Guy Jackson, shares what a week in his working life is all about…
Monday
Monday starts on Sunday evening at around 5pm. As well as the day job, I’m also working on a diploma in my spare time in consultancy approaches and interventions, which I’m trying to build into Teads’ own approach to partnership management. I finish up around 9pm and get prepped for the week ahead, reviewing our current performance, any pressing areas that need attention and make a rough plan around priorities for the week ahead.
Our new born, Violet, awakes like clockwork at 5am and this is my time to spend with her and my 2-year-old, Ethel. Living in Manchester, I’m lucky to not have a monster commute every morning so getting the kids ready and doing the nursery run is the biggest benefit and boost to a day that I could get.
For me, Monday is a day for housekeeping which involves back-to-back internal meetings to set-up priorities for the week ahead. This includes catch-ups with sales, marketing, those from our leadership team (based in London) as well as our operations team.
The working day usually ends between 6 and 7pm with a huge to-do list and battle plan for the next four days. It’s then back on the tram and home to family life.
Tuesday
My morning routine is the same every day; get the kids ready and then into work for 8am.
The day starts nicely, taking one of our key sales account directors out for breakfast. Like any business, days can often get so busy and hands on but I (and Teads as a business) put a huge emphasis on staff development. Sometimes it just takes a small amount of reflection and coaching for staff to surface the best ideas, so it’s important to foster an environment where ideas can grow.
10am sees the first meeting of the day with the leadership team from one of our key agency investment departments. Back to the office and there are a few fires to fight. With digital campaigns turning around so fast and so frequently, managing client expectations can often be tough for the guys. It’s therefore important to work as a team, helping to prioritise and lend direction on approach when needed.
After lunch our UK Performance Director from the London office arrives. The development and investment in our performance product is the number one focus for the company, so getting a roadmap front of mind for our clients is key.
A practice that I’m trying to put into an end of day routine at the moment is 30 minutes of reflection.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning is spent in Leeds with one of our client partners, so this means a drive rather than a morning tram. The client in question has a great set-up and has always championed the use of all areas of our tech stack self-serve so building and maintaining a support structure around this model is important.
I’m back in Manchester for a catch-up over a quick lunch with the MD of a local agency. An informal, casual chat like this often proves as the most valuable insight that I can get without requiring a meeting room, a laptop, a presentation and loads of planning.
After three years it still makes me smile how in Manchester you can take someone important out and spend very little on a lunch with no airs and graces.
After a morning away my inbox is exploding out of my laptop so the best part of the afternoon is spent battling this whilst also catching up with the team and putting the finishing touches to a client workshop that we’re running the following day.
Thursday
Thursday is a big day as we are running a creative workshop (or a L’Atelier session as we’ve branded them) for one of our most valued client partners. Teads are huge advocates for “Better ads, not more ads”, and with the creative execution being so important in today’s snackable mobile world, delivering creative excellence through a morning’s work is a guaranteed way of getting a “WOW” out of a client.
The output of this session is incredible and gets the “WOW” that we were looking for. This was also the first L’Atelier session that we have run out of our Manchester operation so a great delivery by the team.
Over lunch I meet with the MD of one of the local trade organisations to discuss upcoming marketing opportunities as well as seeing where Teads could offer support.
One of our account managers has recently had a little boy so post lunch we plan out his cover whilst he takes his second chunk of paternity leave. Incredibly, our office has seen the birth of three babies over the past 12 weeks so many of us are all in the same bubble of enjoying a new dynamic to family life and the balance this requires with regards to working life.
The rest of the afternoon is spent on a number crunching mission, reviewing the performance of one of our agency partners based in Scotland in advance of tomorrow’s trip.
Friday
Friday starts early. I’m not on kiddy drop-off today as I have to get to the airport for 7am ready for my flight north of the wall.
The airport provides me with a much-needed hour to get some breakfast while reviewing the week, sending a quick report to my MD and UK leadership team. The 3P’s as we call it is a practice that runs bottom to top within the organisation, feeding back to your manager on progress, problems and plans for the following week. I actually love the format as a means to reflect and plan.
I arrive at the client’s office for 11am where we take a real deep-dive into the numbers, taking the time to understand a few key challenges that the agency is seeing that will require a little work and manoeuvring resource from our side.
After lunch I pop into a local coworking space in Edinburgh to which we have multi-city access. I have a weekly catch-up over Skype with the boss in London. Being the first week of the month we review the previous month’s P&L as well as going through a general business update so he can understand our pressures, approach and performance.
I also then catch-up with the team back in Manchester ensuring the week is closed out before end-of-play. It’s summer hours, so after a good week the team back at the ranch are off for a beer together for a 4pm finish. Happy with the week, I get a taxi to the airport for a flight home with a couple of hours’ work on the go before getting home to enjoy the weekend with the family… before it all starts again.
