David Ezra, director at The Saltmarsh Partnership, on fixed pitches, Dame Judi 'Drench' and longing to be a musician.
The thing that gets me up in the morning is...
The need for tea, breakfast and to know what’s happening in the world. Especially the world of football.
What made me want to get into PR was...
I was fascinated by the media yet I didn’t want to actually become a journalist. PR seemed a different and interesting way of telling stories and had the added benefit of opening doors to a huge variety of different business sectors.
If I could change one thing about the industry it would be...
I would love to see an end to ‘fixed’ pitches - the ones you don’t get and later learn another agency was in the box-seat from the very beginning, with the prospective client simply going through the motions… and wasting everyone else’s time in the process.
My greatest inspiration is...
Working in the travel and tourism sector. It’s colourful, vibrant, endlessly varied and rarely predictable. We are promoting something that excites people; others in the PR industry have to wax lyrical about acne treatments or toilet paper.
The three things I demand in my colleagues...
I don’t 'demand' anything, I don’t think it’s a term that should be used in a respectful relationship. But the three things I like to see are helpfulness, attention to detail and being a team player. Fortunately we have a very good team at Saltmarsh and these qualities are there in spades.
The character I most dislike in people is...
Empire-building, naked ambition, self-interest - or a combination of all three.
I laugh most at...
Blackadder, Mock The Week, Bill Bailey and The Sun’s headlines - their guys must have the best time in the world just doing their job.
The PR figure I most admire is...
Any of my colleagues - they have to put up with me! I don’t really think in terms of admiring senior industry figures, but what really makes an impression is when a younger colleague achieves something outstanding and you have one of those double-take moments as you realise how far they have come.
The one website I always check is...
The BBC News website is my home page and always the first port of call every morning. After I’ve done that it’s usually the Telegraph and Guardian sites for more news, then on to the football sites.
The most interesting fact about me is...
Waiting to be revealed at my wedding next year!
My daily newspaper of choice is...
The Sun. And not just for the football gossip.
The finest moment in my career so far is...
Hopefully still to come. But the most memorable has to be the launch of the Carnival Legend cruise ship in 2002. Dame Judi Dench was Godmother to the new ship but when she launched the mechanism that sends the ubiquitous bottle of champagne against the side of the vessel, it didn’t smash. It simply clunked against the ship and dropped into the water. She and the captain then teamed up to smash the bottle against the ship by hand, which they did rather too emphatically. She was covered in champagne and of course the next morning’s headlines all featured Dame Judi Drench. The level of coverage worldwide was spectacular.
My most embarrassing moment was...
There are so many to choose from! But last year, on a press trip to Australia, I was at a new eco-resort where I managed to walk into a plate-glass window during dinner then, later that evening, fell off a walkway on my way to bed. For once, neither mishap had anything to do with alcohol. The journalists loved it.
I’ve got a secret...
Desire to be a musician. But despite my four guitars, keyboard, banjo, mandolin and autoharp, it seems the fates are against me. Maybe talent would help.
If I won the Euromillions I would...
Probably be incredibly conservative and sensible with the money. Until my fiancée got to work on changing my mind!
The next big thing in social media will be...
I read recently about moves to develop new social networking facilities which offer individual users complete privacy and control over their own content and personal information. This seems to me to be tapping into a growing consumer sentiment so it’s probably worth keeping an eye on.
In five years’ time PR will be...
Not all that different to how it is today. I read a lot about seismic shifts in the art of PR but the same constants will apply - identifying the right journalists for your product or message and providing them with angles they can use. Clearly the online environment has created new and interesting ways to get your messages direct to consumers, but these will not render traditional media relations redundant. Not in the next five years, anyway.
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