My Biggest Lesson: Jonathan Izzard

Jonathan Izzard is a creatively-minded strategist who believes in the power of objectivity, diversity and audience-first thinking to deliver meaningful solutions for brands. Jonathan has developed Wonder’s audience-focused strategic offering, seeing experiences as the most meaningful frontline connection point between brands and the people that matter to them.

With a background in sports marketing, where he advised brands as diverse as BMW, Coca-Cola, Accenture, Betfair, Bupa, Under Armour, Red Bull and Vitality across their sponsorship and partnership portfolios, Jonathan knows all about the importance of brands ‘walking the walk’ in order to deliver authentic moments of truth for their audiences.

Never be knowingly underprepared.

It was 2004 and I was an account executive in the first year of my first real job - a wonderful sports marketing company called Karen Earl Sponsorship. We were proud to have Coca-Cola as a long-term client and I was prouder still to be on that team, working directly with their European sponsorship director - a really impressive and highly driven guy.

I was very green, but extremely excited to be getting my teeth into projects like EURO 2004 and the Olympic Games for a brand like Coca-Cola.

Rather than a single event, this particular lesson was a regular occurrence over the first couple of months working with Jonathan, the client at Coke that led to this realisation. I would arrive at the company HQ in Hammersmith for our weekly meeting and almost immediately be quizzed on the sporting stories of the day. 

What did I think about *that* Six Nations match? How did I feel England’s last result had impacted things for Sven? Was the new F1 deal that had just been announced really worth the money the sponsor had paid?

And I’ll admit, I didn’t always have an answer. Was it because I was relatively young? Was I not interested enough in the off-field implications of sport? Maybe I just hadn’t read the news that morning?

Whatever it was (probably a bit of everything), this lit a fire under me. From that very first time when I felt unable to either challenge my client or add value to the debate, I knew I needed to up my game. To be better prepared.

I always thoroughly enjoyed working with Jonathan. 

He was an excellent client: always having a strong opinion on the direction of a project and always clear on how to deploy agencies to make it happen - and make it sing.

As such, he was extremely influential in the direction of my career, both in terms of the work I got to do and - on Coke’s activation of EURO 2008, in particular - the once-in-a-lifetime experiences he let the project team share. In the space of about 18 months I attended a fiery football match between Turkey and Greece in Istanbul, the America’s Cup in Valencia, a Champions League Final - and even got to hold the Henri Delaunay Cup (which is more than Harry Kane could muster last summer). 

While these opportunities were the icing on the cake, it was the day-to-day work that really changed my life. Getting to drive projects that helped Coca-Cola think more strategically about how it acquired and leveraged its sponsorship assets - along with the hundreds and hundreds of PowerPoint slides that accompanied this thinking - honed my skills and shaped my trajectory in the industry.

To be clear, this lesson was never something he specifically said, but rather a penny-drop moment based on working together. 

The implication was that taking an active - and proactive - interest in my work was vital in demonstrating a healthy respect for my clients, colleagues and company. This laid the  foundations for better work and was the starting point for challenging myself and others.

If you’re not interested enough then you’re not hungry enough.

This drove me on in my career, as a very straightforward benchmark for quality and care.

As a younger man I probably took it a bit too literally - feeling like I had to be the expert in the room on a subject before I presented it to a client - but as I’ve matured and gained in confidence, I’ve realised that that’s not really the point.

As a strategist, I always describe my job as helping people think. It’s about me needing to know enough about a given topic to be able to form a helpful opinion on it - and if I don’t know the answer, it’s about having the confidence to know that, with the right preparation, I’ll be able to solve it later.

As I’ve got older I’ve realised that whilst it’s always vital to be prepared for any meeting, pitch or presentation, no one needs to know everything. Ultimately, preparation is about planning. Anticipating the needs of the people around you and adapting as necessary. 

What if I get asked x? How much do we need to talk about y? What will this person be thinking about z?

In a world that sometimes feels like it's moving faster than we can ever individually keep up - qualifying this advice feels crucial for one’s sanity.

I share this wisdom with others but through my actions, not direct advice. 

In my opinion, this is a best practice behaviour that’s so straightforward that it needs to dawn on someone themselves. When it does, you tend to notice greater accountability and confidence in what they’re doing, as well as greater clarity about what they’re doing next.

Time can often feel like a luxury in our industry, but demonstrating the benefits of preparation and pre-work can help encourage anyone to prioritise more efficiently and get ahead of the game, whatever that may be.