FIGARODIGITAL.CO.UK
What does your current role at the BBC involve and what are your objectives there?
I’m currently working with BBC Television and a large part of my role is to drive digital transformation. We’re looking at how BBC Television can innovate in digital and how best to take our content to audiences online. We’re also exploring how to transform production so we’re able to produce content for any media seamlessly, so that we meet new audience expectations and behaviours. Another big part of my role is
working on a new global brand for natural history, together with BBC Worldwide. This genre is universally loved - accessible to audiences of all ages, backgrounds or nationalities - with enviable reach and awareness figures around the world. We’re building a new brand globally to reflect the BBC’s leading position in this category. In the UK, this means a lot more emphasis on our digital brand and experience. Outside the UK this includes new television channels in some markets, as well as innovative projects such as Orbi, a high-tech natural history attraction in Japan.
What qualities - personal, technical and creative - does a role like yours
require?
You have to be agile, able to think on your feet and be adaptable. Working in digital, things change very quickly and you have to be able to change with it.
These days it’s not so much about
the tech or the digital channels. It’s about working with people within the culture of an organisation to make things change. You need the ability to win confidence and trust. It’s about building relationships and getting
32 issue 22 october 2014
Welcome to My World
Eva Appelbaum is Digital Director at BBC Earth. Before that she was the
corporation’s Head of Digital Marketing Transformation. She tells Figaro Digital
about her career so far, the changing face of marketing, and why it’s the place where art and science meet
people to want to work with you in order to change the way things happen. To achieve that there are a few qualities which are underrated but essential. One of them is to be empathetic. People can be brilliant experts in their fields yet feel somehow incompetent because they don’t have digital expertise. Empathising with that and being able to show consideration for another person’s expertise is important. Try not to come in as someone who is ‘digital’ and sweep everything else away. It’s better to work with people and make them feel confident about their skills and then bring them to a place where they feel more confident with digital. You also need to be able to keep
your ego in check. If you’re trying to help an organisation get better at digital, it sometimes happens that when they achieve that, you’re no longer the person getting the credit. Being someone who always wants to get credit for everything makes it very difficult to do the job.
What do you think will be the most significant challenge facing
marketers in your sector over the next year?
The pace of change is overwhelming and no one has a blueprint. Everyone is venturing out into the
unknown. There’s a fear of not reacting quickly enough: people fear that if they don’t react they risk becoming obsolete, but they aren’t always clear on what they actually need to do. That might sound like a slightly high-
level answer, but it’ll be a big challenge for many years to come. It’s only when certain behaviours, tools and
channels have been around for a while that there starts to be clarity about
INTERVIEW EILIDH WAGSTAFF
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