The broadcaster’s chief audience and marketing officer tells Tim Healey why she questions ‘risk’ but champions creative experimentation, how a ‘Fountain of Filth’ helped Channel 4 stand out and why strategic consistency still matters.
You started in fashion journalism before moving into advertising. How did that journey lead you to become Channel 4’s CMO?
I’ve had a career of many parts, having never been quite sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. (I’m still not really sure what I want to be when I grow up.)
I started my career in fashion. At the time print magazines were all thinking about launching an online proposition. I found myself sitting in meetings debating whether magazine content published online should directly replicate what you could buy off the shelf – or whether it should target a different type of audience and package itself up in a different way. I remember being very interested by that – thinking about how the brand might show up in different ways in different places.
After a period of self-reflection – and realizing I was never going to be the best dressed person in the room – I started to research jobs that might focus on that question more singularly, and so I came across ad–agency land.
I sent 50 handwritten letters. I got three responses back inviting me for an interview. And I decided to join a small, independent agency to forge my path.
A few years later, working in another agency as an account director on the M&S business, I remember a moment where I thought: “I think I want to be my client, because they get much closer to the business than we ever can in the agency.”
So, I left to go and work brand–side for 18 months, at a womenswear label, and I found it really hard. It was a small company at the time, but I missed the combination of T–shaped generalists, misfits and constant change that make agencies so utterly brilliant to be part of.
I hop–skipped back to agency side quite quickly, staying there for some time, latterly as the Chief Operating Officer at TBWA\London. Then came another moment of reckoning, when someone said: “Well, you’re obviously working towards running the agency one day”. And I stopped to say, “Am I…?”
Through a series of exploratory conversations with people I really trust and value, I got approached about coming to run Channel 4’s 4Creative – in a newly created MD role. I completely loved it for about a year, before noticing that 4Creative didn’t really need someone like me to keep being brilliant.
So, I used the time to get to know other parts of Channel 4 – the awesome Commissioning & Scheduling teams, the Tech & Digital strategy, the Sales GTM plans. And then, through serendipity and various other strange goings on, I was asked to take on the interim CMO role when my predecessor left.
My first thought? “I can’t do this because the whole industry is going to look at me going, “Who the hell is that?” and “Why on earth have they put her in that role?”” But after going through the formal interview process, I realized that perhaps the way I think about things – with my career of many parts – can be helpful and different.
What’s coming up for you and your marketing team over the next year?
More of the same – strategic consistency seems to have gone out of fashion, but we are sticking to our guns and trying to follow–through on our plans. We shifted our focus 18 months ago to a more simplistic strategy, centering on ‘talkability’, really driving fame for the brand and making sure we’re spending our money effectively and efficiently. With the creation a few months ago of a new Audience & Marketing team, which now includes our Insight & Analytics, Product, Growth, C4+ and 4Studio teams, I’m very excited by the prospect of driving significant creative and commercial impact for the channel into 2027.
I read that Channel 4 indexes very highly for younger viewers – is that the case?
Youngs consideration is important, and we are certainly the youngest profiling commercial BVOD brand, but we’re also a British public–service broadcaster. Our total adult reach this year across linear and streaming is 45m, more than the whole of the Netflix, Prime and Disney ad tier combined. We also do some really distinctive digital originals that you can watch on our YouTube Channel 4.0 – which turns 4 this October and has over 2bn views across all platforms.
What did running the in–house agency show you as a CMO that an outside hire might have missed?
I was sat next to a marketer at an awards do about a year ago who was working with an external agency. They wanted my point of view on how, working with an in–house agency, we were able to create such consistently effective work together, so at one point they turned to me and asked: “Katie, how do I get my agency to do what I want them to do?”
Isn’t that a telling set of words? The mistake here is in the construct of the question – you don’t “get” an agency to do what you want them to do; you and the agency should be doing what the business needs together. It’s not rocket science, but if you believe the agency is your partner, not your service provider, that’s the route to collective success.
How do you keep Channel 4 rebellious when the platforms you now rely on tend to reward the familiar?
Do algorithms reward the familiar? I think they prioritize what audiences are engaging with, which then creates a sense of real homogeneity for the user – a sort of ‘copy paste’ echo chamber that’s hard to break through.
Our brilliant new MD of 4Studio, our social content arm, has made some singularly effective changes to our social strategy and how we show up – focusing on distinctive brand asset rigor, reactivity and tone of voice. For instance, if we inject our arsenic green brand color into the captions on a TikTok reel – it stands out visually in your feed and is attributable to Channel 4, whilst the content selection itself is driven by the platform audiences, genre and show format.
We can also have a lot of fun alongside social content publishing, with reactive memes and cultural commentary bringing the brand DNA to life. (Run, don’t walk to our Threads account, which makes me laugh every day.)
Given that you had some time agency side, but now you market the place that brands buy, what do you understand differently about advertisers?
You’re right that there’s both a B2C and B2B element that I’m plugged into, so I work closely with our Chief Commercial Officer to think about how we walk that line. We need to be very clear as a media owner around our targeting, measurement and effectiveness capability, and what we can deliver for advertisers in a way that a lot of the social platforms purport to do very well.
Advertisers have always wanted to be associated with brands that have strong audience affinity – because you’re talking to a more engaged cohort when you show up in that brand’s ecosystem. We’re very clear on who we are, and so are our audiences – we’re an Altogether Different broadcaster with strong reach and engagement growth across a range of different segments and are the joint top trusted TV news brand in the UK.
Aside from Channel 4, you chair Artswork. You back young creative talent. What does that work give back to how you lead your team?
Thank you for asking about Artswork – they are such a brilliant charity and have real impact on the communities they work with. But the single biggest revelation for me is their focus on youth leadership, which is about more than just words. Artswork have a youth board who contribute to their strategy and development plans on a rolling basis – an important reminder not to make decisions unilaterally or hierarchically as standard.
Our Channel 4 apprentices, and younger team members, are often candid and constructive about what Channel 4 could do better – and I welcome those perspectives. I religiously run a “drop–in” once a week from 1–2pm, where anyone can turn up to say hello, ask me a question or challenge something that’s come up. They can come and say: “I’m annoyed about this”, “I didn’t like the way you said that in the email”, “I need some help” or “I’ve had an idea about this”. Creating that space matters to me.
How important is creative risk–taking when marketing Channel 4?
It’s everything, though we must be careful about that word ‘risk’ I think. It’s hard to conceptualize or articulate what we really mean by it, and as Sir John Hegarty has always pointed out – no one gets out of bed and says: ‘today I want to eat risky cereal’ or ‘today I want to watch something risky’. Well, maybe some people do.
The reality is that we don’t have the budgets that some of the international players in our category do, so it is disproportionately important to try new things and surprise people, to do things both differently and distinctively. That’s hard to sustain – particularly in a world where every penny counts – when trying new things, by definition, doesn’t guarantee success every time. But it means we can make things like the ‘Fountain of Filth’ on London’s South Bank – showing murky brown water coming out of life–size bronze models – to get people talking about Dirty Business, our docudrama about a decade–long investigation into sewage dumping.
Is there an AI x human sweet spot, and if so: where is it?
I’m not sure there’s a sweet spot – simply because every person and every company will have a different reality and set of circumstances that would change it. What I do feel strongly about, is that an overreliance on AI goes hand–in–hand with a slow diminishing of critical thinking capability. You could probably plot a chart that says as you see AI usage speed up and grow over time, our ability to think critically does the opposite. That’s not based on anything but observation and anecdotes though…
To be clear, I don’t feel fatalistic about it, I feel energized by the opportunities that AI can create, but our human brains are magical and we shouldn’t forget about what we’re capable of dreaming up.
Is there a challenge you’re facing right now that you’re happy to share with us in terms of marketing? And what would your advice to other marketers be that are facing that challenge?
I’d probably say measurement is the biggest challenge that we’re facing at the moment; trying to work out whether everything we’re doing across every touch point compounds effectiveness or not is tricky. If anyone has a solution to a total market effectiveness measurement tool, call me!
What advice would I give around that subject? As ever, I’d say try not to boil the ocean. Work out what the single biggest value creation lever for the organisation is and drive that hard. It won’t be perfect, things will change, there will always be cynics, but hold steadfast to the endgame.
Drawing on your leadership expertise, what has your career taught you that helps you to make a great team?
Energy and instinct are two things I always look for – gut instinct is not a new concept, but I really don’t think we talk enough about the importance of energy. You could be the most qualified person in the entire world, you could have worked on the most high–profile and famous projects and campaigns anywhere internationally, you could have rebuilt a digital product from scratch in record time, but if you suck the energy out of a room, I don’t want you in the team.
Bringing energy, optimism and being someone that people want to be in a room with is really important in a team. And specifically I mean less Pollyanna, more Stockdale Paradox – the ability to face reality whilst keeping faith – I really think balancing optimism with realism creates a phenomenally powerful team culture. I have to admit to a low tolerance for people who are ‘drains’ vs. ‘radiators’.
What question would you like me to ask the next senior marketer when I interview them?
What does the future of marketing look like to you? Does that excite you or scare you?
Your question from the last senior marketer I interviewed is, “What will you never sacrifice as a CMO? What hill will you die on? Or, in other words, what one thing would you insist on and never compromise as a marketer?
I’d never sacrifice the audience’s perspective. I’ll always die on the KISS principle hill. I will never compromise on creativity.
If there’s one thing you know about marketing, it is?
That marketing has a really bad marketing problem.
This interview is brought to you in partnership with Worth Your While – an independent creative agency based in Copenhagen, working globally. Named one of The Drum’s Indie Agency Top 100, WYW exists on the belief that time is humanity’s most valuable resource, and that the only ideas worth making are ones that earn it. You might die tomorrow. Make today worth your while. https://wyw.agency/
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