It was a very junior role with a ton of exposure to all areas of the business. Anyone looking to get into sports should have that mentality to try a ton of stuff and work in different areas to find your fit. It was a great learning experience for me; whilst I was in the marketing team I worked on everything from licensing agreements and web marketing to consumer trade shows and press release writing.
It was quite an eye opener to the working world in that sense, but it also gave me a great opportunity to build strong relationships in the toy, gaming and entertainment industries from there.
My career has kind of come full circle already in terms of where I worked 10 years ago. EA are one of our biggest strategic partners these days, and we’ve actually brought on new hires from them that I worked with 10 years ago! There is a lesson in there... never burn bridges, you don't know when you will return and maay need those reltaionships."
It's almost as incestuous an industry as the sports one. People tend to move in between EA, Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft etc. All the big publishers. I was doing creative asset work, working with licensed brands like the NBA, NFL and Premier League and FIFA to have packaging for the games created and approved.
My favorite brand to work on was FIFA, especially as a huge football fan. Working with clubs like Chelsea and the leagues to get imagery approved might not send glamorous but to me it was a dream.
Working with that kind of IP at that age and seeing the process of getting a product to work was super cool. EA are very closely involved with the esports industry now; FIFA is the basis for the MLS league, the NHL commissioner is talking about a parallel league etc, so we're really proud to be working with them very, very closely in a number of territories around the world to deliver some really exciting competitions.
That's fantastic. You had a stint with Coca Cola. And then you became the global digital content manager at Head.That's an incredible leap. So, tell us a little bit about that and how did the experience at Head help you move to your next position at the LTA.
TOM HALLS INTERVIEW
After Upper Decks you joined Electronic Arts, Which is really interesting because now EA is a deep association with the sports industry. Tell us a little bit about that work that you did at EA.
*That is definitely full circle, just proves how small our world really is.*
Sure. So at Coca-Cola I was essentially working across packaging approvals for all their brands with a strong focus on the Olympic project for London 2012. It's the second time as a city we'd hosted the Olympics and Coca-Cola needed someone to coordinate digital campaigns with their agency partners and limited-edition cans and the like.
I essentially lived on site at the Olympic Park for three weeks of the Olympics and build out content plans and coordinated approaches for their digital agencies. Then a friend of mine had mentioned that HEAD where looking for someone to do something similar for them; coordinating content and campaigns. I was a keen tennis player growing up, so obviously aware of their athletes and products; people like Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller.
84