3 questions I wish I’d asked as a junior marketer: Confused.com’s Samuel Day
Marketers should celebrate their love for the industry and not be afraid of being seen as ‘marketing geeks’ as passion helps you stand out, says the Confused.com CMO.
Samuel Day grew up with a passion for marketing, inspired in large part by the iconic TV adverts of the 1980s. This was a passion that, even as a graduate at Midland Bank in the mid-1990s, he could not ignore.
At that time, the grad programme offered by the bank ended in taking the Chartered Institute of Banking exams. Knowing that was not the route he wanted to pursue, Day decided to shake things up.
“I said, ‘I’ll be the guinea pig and design the marketing graduate programme’. I did the Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications, studying for them in my own time, and Midland Bank paid for the exams. I effectively broke the ground for what became their marketing graduate programme,” he recalls.
Being brave enough to challenge the established route has stood Day in good stead, leading him on to a series of senior marketing roles including head of customer retention and loyalty at the AA, RAC director of customer acquisition and now CMO of price comparison site Confused.com.
The longer he has progressed in his career, the more Day believes that a love of marketing should be celebrated and not stifled, as passion for your work makes you distinctive. Likewise, being curious and interested in your colleagues, and crucially your customers, should form the bedrock of any successful marketing career.
