5 Minutes with… Natasha Broady

​Natasha Broady is client services director at Seen Presents, a London-based brand experience agency that takes pride in being female-led.

Prior to joining Seen Presents, Natasha was the global partnerships lead at Universal Music Group from July 2019 to November 2022. Her earlier career includes positions such as vice president at Sunshine, head of integrated lifestyle and experience at Exposure, and associate board director at Cake Group, where she collaborated with brands like Coca-Cola and British Airways. ​

In her current role since 2022, Natasha has been instrumental in strategic collaborations such as Seen Presents’ partnership with TikTok to produce LIVE Fest, bringing together 650 creators and 30 different clients. Whether it’s launching the Volvo EX30 via a multi-sensory experience or treating advertisers as fans for Netflix’s Cannes Lions installation, she’s obsessed with leading the way for brand experiences alongside her clients.

LBB’s Alex Reeves got to know Natasha a bit better.

LBB> What was your upbringing like and how has it shaped you as a person?

Natasha> I came from an entrepreneurial family, my grandparents and both my parents had businesses. My dad was in fashion wholesale, and my mum still has an underwear and swimwear business, so I think entrepreneurship was in my blood from a very early age. From the age of 14 years, I was either on the shop floor doing fittings, going to buying meetings, or selling thousands of garments. Even though I didn’t want to go into the family business, the experience gave me the confidence to believe I could achieve anything I set my mind to, as well as the drive and hunger to do something exciting with my life.

LBB> How did you end up working in this industry and how did that lead you to Seen Presents?

Natasha> Before going to university I was offered work experience at a direct marketing agency which sparked my passion for the media industry. Off the back of that job, I secured a year's placement at Lexis PR as an account assistant, so I deferred my place at university. I fell in love with the job, so much so, that I decided to take a risk and not return to my studies.

From there, I moved to Cake, where my hunger to expand my knowledge beyond PR grew, so I took on an integrated role, working between their PR and experiential departments. This was the foundation of my career, where I was lucky enough to collaborate closely with incredible talent like Mark Whelan, now the chairman of Havas, who pushed me to truly understand strategy, and to how to tell a story and bring ideas to life across multiple disciplines – for me this was instrumental to my growth.

I then took on several roles at Exposure and Sunshine agency, where I led integrated or experiential teams, delivering high-profile global projects with events at the heart of them. All of this led me to join Seen Presents in 2022 and I’ve never looked back!

Meeting a female leader like Louisa [O’Connor, managing director], who shares the same drive and passion as I do was incredibly refreshing. When she presented me with the opportunity to come in as her number two to help diversify and grow our business offering, it was an offer I couldn’t turn down.

LBB> What have been some of your biggest career lessons?

Natasha> My biggest career lessons have come from my constant desire to be better, to stay curious and to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

In the early days of my career, someone told me I wasn’t good at strategy – so I went out of my way to prove them wrong. Having self-belief and a thirst for knowledge has always outweighed my ‘learnt knowledge’. It’s ok to make mistakes – we’re human. It’s how you learn and grow from them that makes you better at your job.

My desire to never stop learning from everyone around me keeps me driven, and the constant evolution of the creative industry keeps me on my toes. The marketing industry is in constant flux, so you cannot rest on your laurels and assume you know everything. In fact, with the rapid pace of industry change, we all know very little – especially with how quickly AI is integrating in our day-to-day roles. As an industry, we’re still getting to grips with how much this new level of automation is impacting business operations, reshaping our roles, and influencing creative delivery.

LBB> Which projects have most shaped you over the years?

Natasha> I feel so lucky when I look back at my career. What has kept me in the industry is working for brands and doing work that pushes creative boundaries. For example, one part of the campaign I worked on for the British Airways Olympic sponsorship was to recreate the fuselage of a plane as a functioning restaurant alongside Heston Blumenthal. For H&M we wrote an immersive theatre experience which played out in Sedona Arizona for a group of influencers and for LEGO I worked alongside their team to co-create a product ‘VIDIYO’, a music video maker for kids, which we launched by turning one of their llama characters into a real-life music artist.

It was the larger projects working as part of an inter-agency team for brands like LEGO and Coca-Cola that have really shaped me. Truly understanding what it takes to deliver omnichannel campaigns that live across earned and owned channels has helped me learn how to create effective and seamless work.

At Seen Presents, our most recent project for TikTok LIVE Fest was probably one of the most defining points of my career. The scale of this project was huge: one global competition, four events across seven days, 650 creators, one live streamed broadcast to 3.5 million people, daily social content, and an RFID platform translated into 19 languages. Delivering it all flawlessly, with an exceptional team that kept 30 clients happy, was a major achievement.

LBB> What are common misconceptions about brand experience as a marketing channel?

Natasha> I think the misconception is that it's hard to achieve ROI due to the high cost but done well with a strong story at the heart of it, a brand experience can outweigh broader OOH touchpoints. The strongest brand experiences require alignment across all departments. They have evolved from one-off, in-person events to 360 campaigns underpinned by strategic integrated marketing plans that introduce a level of storytelling and inspiration, rarely matched by other forms of brand communication.

Brand experiences aren’t just about selling products; they’re about forging real emotional connections that inspire shareability and drive true business impact. While experiential marketing can be the central pillar, the entire end-to-end journey (before, during, and after purchase) defines the brand experience and really should be a key consideration for creating long term, authentic relationships with consumers.

LBB> Which brands do you feel are winning at brand experience right now?

Natasha> Moncler always inspires me. They truly understand the power of creativity and how to use the fusion of technology, fashion, music and art to create powerful and impactful experiences which tap into the current zeitgeist of culture. They understand how to resonate with new audiences to continue evolving their customer base. Whether it's a fashion show, or their latest campaign ‘The City of Genius’, they constantly push themselves to create big moments, allowing consumers to experience the brand in unexpected ways which create emotional resonance. Tapping into emotion is key, as 71% of customers would recommend a brand based on emotional connection – and Moncler leverages these connections, building lasting bonds with both co-creators and consumers.

LBB> What have been the biggest challenges in growing the Seen Presents business?

Natasha> When you are a start-up business that’s growing at the speed we are, there are daily challenges which are exciting and scary in equal measure. Over the last two years, our business has grown from 23 to 33 people, and once you pass the 30 mark, it brings new challenges daily.

Resourcing and the speed at which we grow are key factors. We don’t want to grow too quickly as this brings lots of problems, so our job is to figure out how to continue delivering the excellence we’re renowned for while scaling, where necessary, with freelancers. Systems and processes that worked for a small team simply don’t cut it as you scale. Keeping a handle on client relationships while we grow is my main focus. Are the team delivering the client servicing excellence we promise? Is the client getting the attention they need? Are we delivering the best possible work – not only from a production point of view but a creative point of view too? It’s our responsibility to know what’s keeping our clients up at night and what business problems we need to help them solve. As an agency, we pride ourselves on this - because we’re only as good as our last job.

LBB> As client services director, how do you approach building strong, long-term relationships with your clients? Do you adopt a personalised approach for each one

Natasha> Client relationships are built on trust and honesty. For me, it's definitely about the personal approach – especially as every client has a different way of working, a unique business need and their own set of challenges. Face time with clients is imperative because I don’t believe you can build true rapport and trust over the phone. Never underestimate the power of a lunch, a post-event drink or just popping to their office for a quick meeting. It's in those moments that you learn the most about them as individuals, from their needs to their likes and dislikes. You want clients to walk away thinking “I love doing business with them and I want to tell other people.”

The best clients don’t want transactional relationships with their agencies, they want us in the trenches with them. They want us helping drive their business forward, bringing fresh thinking to the table and offering a guiding hand on key decisions. Our goal is to give the client the weapons they need to look good internally and externally.

LBB> What campaign springs to mind that could only have happened thanks to that kind of strong relationship?

Natasha> I think the recent campaign we ran for TikTok LIVE. We’d never worked with this particular client, who was by far one of the best clients I’ve ever worked with due to the trust he put in us from day one. With the complexity of this project, my role was to sit across the whole team to ensure we delivered exactly what we set out to achieve, on time, on budget and to the standard that we’d promised. For me, this was about building an authentic relationship with him and his team that, where required, I could have honest and transparent conversations with him when the need arose.

LBB> What advice would you give brands who aren’t currently leveraging experiential marketing?

Natasha> If you are a CMO I’d definitely advise you to ask yourself why, according to the latest Bellwether report, events as a marketing channel was a top-performer in Q4 last year (against other channels including PR, main media advertising etc.). We know that 43% of consumers who engage in a brand experience are more likely to try the brand versus 21% who said the same about traditional advertising.

The lines between digital, physical and social experiences have blurred, we are now at the heart of the experience economy where consumers are placing more economic value on ‘experiences’ than anything else. Experiential marketing creates opportunities for consumers to get hands on with a brand. Done well they create unique and engaging moments that are highly shareable on social media, amplifying brand reach and visibility, leading to organic growth.

LBB> What’s going on in culture right now that’s inspiring you?

Natasha> So many things! I hate myself for saying it, but one thing has to be the evolution of AI and how we as an industry are using this technology. The blurring of boundaries – between tech and creativity, between genres, between digital and physical – is creating entirely new forms of expression that continue to keep us on our toes and it inspires me daily.

The other thing that inspires me is how brands are pushing the boundaries creating fusions of culture across music, fashion and entertainment. Take Bobby Hundreds becoming the vice president creative at Disney as an example, they are and will always be an entertainment powerhouse, yet they knew that to capture the next generation, particularly gen z, they needed a fresh perspective and a deep understanding of where cultural conversations are happening.

Louis Vuitton bringing in Pharell is another example – he doesn’t follow trends, he creates them. He’s like the North Star for building cultural capital. Pharell knows how to connect with audiences in playful, visually rich and compelling ways. He understands how to make a lasting impression by stepping out of well-trodden formats by taking creative risks. His work is a masterclass in immersive and unexpected storytelling, whether that’s through social media, live experiences, or collaborations – he always surprises. Ultimately, marketing isn’t just about communicating the message we want to share; it’s about creating stories that others want to share themselves.