Carey Trevill joined BIG little LDN back in August as our Strategic Adviser working alongside Founder Emma Critchley-Lloyd as the agency prepares for exponential growth in 2024.

We sat down with Carey to find out a little more about how she started her career, her journey so far and the lessons she’s learnt along the way. Grab yourself a cuppa and prepare to be inspired.  

Carey, tell us a bit about your background and the journey to BIG little LDN.

I was very lucky as in 1995 I landed a plum job working for a brilliant agency after an interesting start to my working life. I tried a few things before arriving on the creative floor of Clarke Hooper to work for the then Chairman, Barry Clarke (a behemoth in below-the-line marketing) and never looked back. Barry gave me a chance to work in this industry and I’ll always be grateful for his insight and wisdom. It helped I could also type 100 words a minute to work for this exceptional Chairman and he suggested I take up some account exec work on one of the agency’s biggest accounts. So, I became a suit and got to work on some fantastic campaigns, worked more hours than I thought was possible and even met my future husband there.

I went on to work for several agencies including starting my own with the husband I found along the way, Steve, back in 2004. We then merged this agency with another global agency, after this I went on to take a different route altogether. Many years on, lots of celebrations, mistakes and successes later, here I am working with some of the brightest and best in the creative world putting all that experience to good use.  

Since those early days, I’ve shifted into more consultative roles, working with the promotional sector with the BPMA, experienced CAP first hand and lucky enough to be involved with the Ad Association plus the Debating Group, taking advertising and marketing challenges in the House of Commons.  

BIG little LDN is my latest project. It’s a great privilege to represent the people and businesses I’m able to work with and thank my stars every day I get to do all this for a living.

What do you love most about your job?

An excellent question, and one with many answers! The people first and foremost I’m lucky enough to meet and rub shoulders with. The incredible brands and companies too as I’ve been able to work with international brands, local start-ups right through to premier league football clubs over the years – coupled with the ability to start every day thinking anything is possible.  

What are the attributes you look for in a creative? For instance, what makes a good marketer, designer or director?

Lots of roles and all have a different angle to get to the same outcome. Curiosity and questions are traits I always look for; commercial acumen is another as we’re in business to make these brands we work with sell more however you slice and dice it. In our industry, we curate and gather some of the world’s great minds together and the ones who stand out are the ones who embrace the possible, challenge the norm and keep their eyes on the prize.  

What's your BIGGEST pet peeve?

Grammar and basic maths. Making sure you’ve checked, checked and checked again. We all make mistakes and I’ve made some corkers in my time (the Cola-Cola banner for a promotion over 20 years ago still haunts me to this day) so sweating the small stuff makes a difference. It’s important to show we care about the words and numbers making sense as if we don’t, who is going to? That, and weak tea but I’m really picky about my tea.

What’s one thing you want all marketers or business owners to know?

Making sure your objectives for that all-important brief or business plan are not in fact a wistful hope or a dream with no clear plan. A very good Canadian friend did a brilliant talk for me many years ago when I was MD at The IPM and told a room full of marketing hopefuls those ‘objectives’ like ‘owning music’ were not realistic and they needed to revisit what was viable – yes, push the boundaries, consider the impossible but also think clearly about where you’re going and why, what and who will get you there and what good honestly looks like. Great work and outcomes happen when we have a plan and those clear objectives – then we can start to consider what is truly possible.  

What would’ve been your Plan B if you weren't a marketer?

Well, at age 16 when I was busy packing my bags and running away from home, it was either to take my BHS exams to be a qualified riding instructor or a bit later on in the midst of various interesting things in my life, a chef. Cooking and creating in the kitchen is a proper escape for me although my two lovely daughters think I’m a bit too Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen for that to be let loose in public! Let’s just say the MasterChef application has never been completed…. I’ve always been a bit of a frustrated creative type but worked out a long time ago I was a better boss than a coach so I’ll stick to ranting in the kitchen and making sure I do the best ever Sunday roast my family will always come home for!

What advice would you give an aspiring marketer who’s just starting out?

Go out there and discover what you really like. Not just through social channels or Google, really step out, take in the brands you interact with every ay, immerse yourself in brand experience, earwig on shoppers, look at how they are looking and choosing, ask a LOT of questions and mainly ask WHY. Listen. Be a big sponge on information, gather and review insights and those comments which catch your eye. Why is this important, why are we doing it this way – be a pain and soak up every bit of information you can. Get others to share with you their thoughts and feelings so you can decide where your aspirations and values sit as a marketer. You’ll know when you feel it.

So, following on from that - what’s some of the best advice you’ve ever received?

I’ve had a lot of advice over the years so that’s a tough one. Listening with your whole self is one I’ve always taken to heart. Active listening is harder than you think and will show others you’ve understood what is being asked and why. Repeating back an ask, task or question to those you’re listening to is a good discipline for anyone. It helps sort the fact from the fiction and avoids mistakes!  

My other favourite is about public speaking. No one ever knows what you’re going to say until you say it, so if you miss something, don’t panic as the only one who knows is you. A wonderful photographer said that to me years ago when she sensed I was in a cold sweat about to present to a room full of my peers and I’ll always be grateful for the leveller she handed me that day. Oh, and if it’s a biggie, go back and make it into a feature of your speech!

I think that takes us up to now. Why did you want to work with BIG little LDN?

The best question of all. So, Emma and I go a long way back as she came into a company I’d worked with previously and our paths had crossed as she tackled promoting a business close to my heart. I’ve always been impressed with her feisty approach to work and relentless pursuit of betterment, I’d been keeping an eye on Emma and the new agency she had built from scratch for a while, watching the team and work she was creating. When she got in touch to talk through her plans for the business, I saw a great agency going places with a brilliant team in place. The opportunity was to help accelerate the trajectory of the agency. To be part of the long-term wasn’t to be passed up. It’s been a delight to get to know the team over the past few months and looking forward to helping the business develop.

Are there any brands or unexplored sectors left on your Wishlist? Who’s left that you’d love to work with?

Like most people, I have some luxe ones on my wishlist like Diptyque and Mulberry but where I love to look are those brands and services who I believe could be doing it better – usually driven by a poor experience! For example, Direct Line is a brand that recently suffered a mass very public exodus of customers due to price disparity – they need a better idea of how to address customers like me who have ditched every bit of insurance with them after 10 years to go elsewhere. They’ve lost the loyalty and their teams aren’t enabled to really address it. My other ‘want to get into bed with’ service is WeAre8; a new media channel with some very clever minds behind it who have flipped the way we engage with advertising on its head.