Levelling Up: Fourth Floor Creative’s Bex Ashford

Fourth Floor Creative’s Bex Ashford tells us what being a campaign manager entails, working with both clients and creators, her start as a data intern and the importance of proper dishwasher etiquette

What is your job role and how would you describe your typical day at work?

Fourth Floor Creative is a specialist influencer marketing agency helping brands work with video content creators across YouTube, Twitch and Instagram. We run paid-for campaigns, set-up advocacy programs, organise events and make white-label content. We also have a thriving merchandise arm with branded stores for creators and brands.

My role as campaign manager is to add value for the creators, their audiences and brands we work with. This is through running creative campaigns across YouTube, Twitch and social platforms.

For creators, we look to bring relevant and exciting opportunities which helps them to make stand-out content for their channels whilst being supported financially to keep doing what they love.

For clients, we work to understand what they need and facilitate working with creators, manage the whole process and making it easy. I also give market insight and advice, this being my area of expertise from having managed over 40 creative campaigns this year.

My typical day starts with planning and organising tasks for the day as there are lots of projects in play with many moving parts. I’ll also check over any updates which have come in overnight as we often are talking to people in different timezones.

Day-to-day tasks depend on which stages projects are in along the campaign process. These stages include idea generation, pitching, project management, content approvals and being POC between both clients and creators.

What qualifications and/or experience do you need to land this job?

I joined Fourth Floor (FF) soon after the company had started, joining as a data intern at the start of 2018.

I was a recent Economics graduate without any prior gaming industry experience but I was willing and eager to learn. I did have some understanding of YouTube and online content, having been a user of the platform since the 2010/11 bubble.

With a lot of thanks to the help of some invaluable mentoring from one of our now Partnership Directors, I learnt in detail about how campaigns work, helped to build the FF campaign process and became YouTube certified. I then moved on and started supporting campaigns before going on to manage my own.

I’d say that knowledge of the gaming space/online creators would definitely help to hit the ground running for this job, but I would say that being hard working and open to always learning is more important.

If you were interviewing someone for your team, what would you look for?

Our team is extremely collaborative in the way we work, so someone who I’d want to work with on a daily basis.

Organisation is also vital and being able to multitask across many live campaigns.

I’d also look for someone who will take initiative, because we’re in a start-up environment and therefore need to be agile in everything we do. Processes and ideas also aren’t set in stone, we’re always looking to improve and hear new perspectives.

These align to our core FF values, which include acting like an owner, taking responsibility and being a great colleague.

Also… I’d want someone who puts their mug in the dishwasher!

What opportunities are there for career progression?

Progression has been great for me so far, going from a data intern to campaign manager in one year. As the business is continuing to grow this means that new roles and opportunities are opening up.

Our senior management team is really receptive to hear our goals, both personal and professional, to steer our progression in a way which compliments our ambitions both in work and for personal development.