Life in a day: Giles Pocock

LONDON, England – We recently caught up with Giles Pocock, who takes care of Nokia’s relationships with Movies and Music Videos. His job takes him all over the world and given that it’s a truly global role, his working day begins and ends long before and after ours. Here Giles tells us a little more about what he does along with how and when he does it.

My day starts about 7.30am with calls and emails from Asia. We’re nearly always working on projects over there so I’ll be taking early morning calls and messages pretty consistently. If I’m in London, I’ll usually have some breakfast (fruit & coffee) before I leave for work. I’m based in Nokia’s UK headquarters in Southwood but also spend a lot of time working with partners and agencies in London, New York and Los Angeles.

Projects like The Dark Knight can suck up a lot of my time. I’ve been working on it for over a year now, and the movie isn’t even out, though I’m getting close to the point where I can jump off and move onto the next one.

New York wakes up just after lunch and the second wave of calls and emails kicks off. Most of my time is spent dealing with people abroad. Travelling is a necessary part of what I do. I’ll usually spend a week or two in the US every other month, catching up with colleagues, industry partners and agencies and planning ahead. Halo, our new telepresence system, makes a difference to my travel, but sometimes you just need to be face to face with people to make a deal or get across what you want. Approving creative over a distance is particularly difficult, and it’s frustrating when it gets printed and it’s not what you were expecting.

When I’m in Finland I’ll spend time with product managers and other colleagues so I have a good idea of product road maps, and what kinds of things we’ll be bringing out in the future. My job means I sit in the middle between Movies (and music videos) and new products – both of which tend to have long lead times. It’s my job to know as much about both as I can, so I can find the best match between a device and a movie. I rely a lot on my teams in LA & New York to keep their hands on what’s hot and not. We work very closely with agency partners, such as Propaganda Global Enetrtainment Marketing, who help us on all our placement activity. When everyone else is heading home after a day’s work, the third part of my day starts when the people in LA wake up.

That means another stream of regular calls and emails before I have dinner. Most days I’ll be on my phone until gone 8pm and often can’t resist checking mail before I head to bed, usually about 11pm.

Although my days are long, I really enjoy what I do. Seeing our product in a blockbuster movie is a huge buzz and the halo effect from the exposure makes it well worth it. We were set goals some time ago to ensure the number of Nokia devices that appear in movies matches the reality of what’s sold on the high street. I’m pleased to say we’ve done that, and more.

This is the first of a new series of articles exploring the people inside Nokia. Please let us know what you think in the comments below. Be sure and tell us if there’s anyone at Nokia you’d like to know more about too. We can’t promise anything, but we’ll look at every request.

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Tags | a day in the life, business, Giles Pocock, global, movies, Music, Nokia, The Dark Knight, work