Salmon Leaps Into Action
We're delighted to welcome Rob Salmon to the Torchbox team as our Director of Digital Marketing. In order to find out all about Rob, what he's been up to and what he is going to be responsible for, we fired some searching questions at him.
So Rob, which company did you join Torchbox from?
Most recently I worked at Molson Coors where I was responsible for the digital activity of a range of leading beer brands including Carling. I worked on some amazing projects there like the award winning Carling.com website, the most successful UK iPhone app of 2008 - iPint - and most recently a Facebook page for Cobra's sponsorship of National Curry Week which really went up up and away with 50k fans in a week...
Whilst at Molson Coors, I was asked to Chair ISBA's (the Association of British Advertisers) Digital Action Group and I am also a member of the Internet Advertising Bureau's Social Media Council.
Have you always worked in digital?
Digital has always played a key part in my working life. For example, back in 1998 I was Carling Premiership Press Officer and we ran an online survey of football fans to find out what they really thought about the game's issues - it got amazing coverage in the print media. From there I went on to be Sports Editor at AOL UK at a time when they were the country's leading ISP before moving to Fast Web Media - an agency in Manchester where I was responsible for the agency's online marketing and SEO division.
What do you believe makes great digital activity?
I've got an equation for that! I believe that:
compelling content + effective amplification = winning digital campaigns
Of course you need clear objectives so you can determine what a campaign's ROI is - but I believe most campaigns win or lose based on how compelling the content is and how famous you make it.
So what will your role at Torchbox entail?
At Torchbox, I'm going to responsible for developing ideas to help make famous the fantastic content which we develop. Torchbox have already had some fantastic success stories in this arena - for example this video for Recycle Now - and it is our aim to utilise the great marketing skills of the team to have many more internet hits in 2010!
An example of what we'll be looking to do more of for clients is the amplification of our Christmas campaign which we've just had some real fun with. We had the idea to develop a Christmas website for our clients where they could come in and activate a snow machine which would make it snow on a member of the Torchbox team. We got great feedback from our clients so decided to try and make it famous across the internet - it went down a (snow) storm resulting in over 30k visits in the space of 24 hours! You can download a file and read all about how we made it happen here.
Away from work, what are you passionate about?
I love hanging out with my wife Beccy and two and a half year old daughter Phoebe. We are expecting another addition to the family on January 11th so 2010 is set to be an exciting year! I love playing tennis, talking football and cooking curry! And I also love listening to music - my favourite band is British Sea Power. I've put together a Soundtrack To My Life on Spotify if you fancy checking it out.
And finally, what are your contact details?
To contact Rob, please email him or call 07901 518 777. You'll also find him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rsalmonuk and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/robsalmon
