Nicole Gilmer: Investigating Her Majesty’s Court and Africa’s Largest Data Leak to Marketing in the Age of AI
With a history in investigative journalism at the BBC and freelancing for legal news outlets, Nicole Gilmer joined Dirt & Glory in 2021 as social media creative and writer to embark on a new creative journey. Here she oversees the social media accounts for True Royalty TV and allók collagen while also contributing to pharmaceutical brands such as ellaOne, Hana, and Compeed.
In this interview with LBB’s Sunna Coleman, Nicole charts her childhood influences, shares her love of detective work and reveals what brands should be looking out for in the social media space right now.
LBB> Tell us about your inspirations and influences growing up.
Nicole> I was very fortunate to be very well travelled when I was little and so I was exposed to a lot of different ways of life. I think that's probably one of the reasons that I have continued to move so frequently in life - I've moved six times just within London so far because I like to change it up. That’s also what I love about working within a marketing agency - I love the variety of different clients.
My parents are my biggest influence. My dad is 76 years old and he's still inventing things, he doesn't dare dream of retirement. He’s a man that wears many hats - a computer engineer to start out with, a kung fu master in South Africa, and he now owns a beverage company. He has so much energy! Both my parents have extremely notable work ethics, which is where I definitely got mine.
LBB> You have a history in investigative journalism - what were your career highlights before you ended up in the ad industry.
Nicole> I started working professionally from 2020 as before that I was completing three degrees - the first in theology, then global ethics and human values, and then an investigative journalism course.
I've always joked about being a bit of a detective and I thought the skills would be amazing. My final project looked at Her Majesty's Courts & Tribunals Service 1.2 billion pound reform programme... which looked to basically close down our courts and move justice online because courts are so expensive to run. I hardcore investigated that showing how they're using out of date technology that is open to cyber attacks and there was no external research on whether virtual justice is actually better for justice outcomes. The only research they had was from 2009 and it showed people are more likely to be incarcerated. So why spend so much doing this? That was a career highlight for me at the time.
From that, I got to work with Joe Casey, who owns the production company, Crowded. He wanted to take my investigation to TV so we worked together for a few months, writing pitches, and ultimately it was just too difficult because we needed people willing to share their deep legal stories but we couldn't get people to tell us that without commission.
However, it paid off because it led me into freelancing for the likes of The Law Society Gazette, BBC Law in Action and a charity called Inside Justice, where I was interviewing retired and active police officers for a bigger study about police retention of evidence.
After a while I longed for something more permanent and one day, I got a call from Joe Casey. He needed a researcher on this big investigation for BBC Africa Eye. I was interested and I started the very next day. The project looked into the largest data leak to ever come out of Africa and it was a worldwide collaboration.
Just a week into that job, I got an interview with Dirt & Glory, because I had been applying for journalism and marketing jobs and I started here once this project was complete.
LBB> What was it that drew you to Dirt & Glory? Tell us about your role here.
Nicole> They were specifically looking for someone to work on the client True Royalty TV, for who you need to have a logical historical thinking mind and it’s also a very popular channel in the US - it's like Netflix for Royals - in the words of Vanity Fair .There was a good overlap between my background and skill set and I was super drawn to the creative, artistic side of marketing. I just wanted to be able to visually express myself, not just through words.
I love the breadth of tasks I get to work on here and because it’s a relatively small agency, I get exposed to things that a big corporate job maybe wouldn't allow me to do. Whether it's social media, packaging, design, website development, customer service, video editing… we very much are in it to help each other here. We’re like family. I have been fortunate in every job I've had to work with amazing people, but I love these guys!
LBB> Very varied! So what’s a new skill you want to learn or are currently working on?
Nicole> I've got basic Photoshop, Premiere Pro, InDesign and Audition skills but I've always wanted to be an Adobe whiz. Our boss, Nigel Brown is very passionate about us doing a course to acquire new skills so I chose graphic design at Central Saint Martins.
LBB> And then within social media creative, what is it that you most love about this space?
Nicole> Social media is literally the way of communicating today - back in the day marketing used to be about magazines and billboards. But now it's social media. I feel like it's hard to exist in today's world, even just on a personal level, without being on social media. I like how it's evolving in terms of the mixture between video and written content. And now we've got BeReal - I mean, honestly, how many more platforms? It's just a crazy space right now which is the hard thing for brands to figure out.
LBB> So what advice do you have for brands when it comes to selecting the right platforms for them?
Nicole> Firstly, the platform has to align with the brand's mission and goals. There's no point signing up to a platform just because it's the new trend, because something comes and then it goes. It needs to support the brand's overall strategy. You need to consider if your target audience is on that platform and also whether your content is suitable for it.
LBB> What are some other challenges that brands are currently facing when it comes to social media?
Nicole> Well we work on a lot of medical brands for who social media can be difficult in terms of regulation because social media is such a fast paced thing that if you're waiting for approval, you’ve already missed the trends.
Then there’s knowing which platforms are right for you out of the many. The other thing is organic cut through - growing a channel organically is definitely more challenging today than it used to be and that's why it's really important for agencies to figure out the brand's unique story that you can get across in an extremely engaging way. Then there’s the platforms themselves having a bit of an identity crisis. For example on Twitter and Instagram now, you can buy blue ticks - authenticity is kind of false, rather than earned.
LBB> What is exciting you most about where social media creative is heading?
Nicole> I would say the main thing that is very much grabbing my attention is the use of AI. I mean in everyday life right now, not just marketing. But from a marketing perspective, I think people are very fearful of AI but the fact is we can't ignore it so it's important that we increase our understanding.
It's not at that point where it's going to replace everybody’s jobs, you still need the human eye on things but it can be a very useful research tool. It’s also great for stock imagery which can be extremely overused, so you can now use AI to create your own interesting stock imagery. Ultimately, that's what I'm looking at right now. The best thing to do is to learn how to prompt engineer, you're only as good as the prompts you give AI and that in itself is such a good skill to have as the technology progresses.
LBB> Finally, what do you like to do outside of work?
Nicole> So I'm currently relearning French. I did it for seven years in school and being bilingual is a major goal of mine. I really love French culture so I started taking lessons online a few months ago and my goal is to have the confidence to speak it. I understand a lot but I have a fear of getting things wrong when I speak it.
I also want to start taking ice skating lessons. I want to own my own pair of white leather ice skates by Christmas!
