• Marketing Account Manager

• Accounting Executive

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Landing in the storm

My past work experiences left me confused and uneasy. Even though I had learnt plenty and encountered wonderful people, I had experienced constant pressure and tense atmospheres. Two and a half years into the work sector, I had convinced myself I wasn’t made for marketing and that I should reconsider my career path. But… what would I do instead? I was lost when I arrived in Malta, thirsty for change and eager to better my English.
The Job Centre in France found me an internship in an online marketing agency in Malta called – surprise, surprise – Switch! Switch was the perfect company to help me improve my English and allow me to work within my skillset. But regardless of the opportunity, I was still perplexed and anxious.
Before setting foot on the island, I had learnt that it seldom rains in Malta. Well, not in my experience. In my first couple of weeks, I experienced the storm which caused the Azure Window to collapse. I was so disappointed. The weather reflected my state of mind, unstable and grey, but the insecurity wouldn’t last long.

A post shared by Caroline de Fréminville (@carolinedefreminville) on Apr 2, 2017 at 11:03pm PDT

Discovering Switch and the Maltese Islands

After only a couple of weeks at Switch, I felt at home. When my family asked about my experience in Malta, I found myself answering “Honestly? It’s great! The team is wonderful, people welcomed me warmly, the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, they are incredibly good at what they do. I’ve never learnt so much in such a short period of time”. I wasn’t saying all of this for the sake of reassuring them, I honestly felt that way. Kirsten showed me all the tricks behind managing Adwords and Facebook campaigns. Melissa, who is bursting with energy and ideas, involved me in social media analysis and copywriting, and David gave me some tips in SEO targeted at human outreach emails.

A post shared by Switch (@switchmalta) on Apr 11, 2017 at 3:24am PDT

Following the storm, I also started to explore the Maltese islands and their amazing landscape. I met their tiny, green, inhabitants (chameleons), had a drink in the surprisingly stunning Popeye Village. I touched the ochre sand of Għajn Tuffieha Bay, soaked my feet in the fresh water of Ramla Bay and admired the turquoise colour of the Blue Lagoon. I bought some local vegetables from the Marsaxlokk Market and walked along the streets of ancient Valletta. I also learned how to cross a road successfully (not minding zebra crossings), and picked up some Maltese words like ‘mela’ or the cute ‘illallu’ on the way.

A post shared by Caroline de Fréminville (@carolinedefreminville) on Mar 25, 2017 at 3:55pm PDT

Leaving in the sun

After three months in Malta, my mood is sunnier, my brain is rejuvenated, my confidence is higher and my skin is tanned-ish! That’s the type of transformation Switch has on people. How could it not, with Kirsten’s: “No worries, don’t stress, just do your best” and Melissa’s “Well done girls! You’re amazing!” and Lindsey’s “Bravo girls! Super happy with your work!”?
Switch highlights the importance of staying ‘human’, and not a day goes by without laughter in the open office, sweets, cakes or chocolates in the kitchen. It’s the same with clients: Switch offers no standard proposal for projects, only dynamic ideas adapted to the client in question. The human element even transpires to the way in which you communicate to your brand’s audience – and this is where Switch excels.
It’s certainly this sincere and strong objective which ensures a good quality of life at in the Switch headquarters. This mindset pushes you to be better at your job, every day.

My short time at Switch helped me achieve a new start, find confidence in myself, improve my English and meet great people. It was an amazing experience and I’ll certainly miss Malta – and of course, the whole Switch Team!
Thank you Switch. It has been a pleasure.
 

Thank YOU Caroline for an amazing few months! We loved having you here, even though you’re vegan. So happy the internship worked out for you – we all wish you the best of luck in your next move! – The Switch Team

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Then the borders became fuzzy

The specialist digital team worked more closely with the creative pool and vice versa until there was no internal distinction any more. All we were left with was the headache of managing two social streams and two sites when we only needed one drinking session for the entire team. Which page do we post the more embarrassing shots to? So we looked at ourselves as we would look at a client and told ourselves what we would tell a client. Sort your shit out and communicate like the single brand that you are. So here we are. We’re Switch. We’re adept at telling stories to an audience, wherever that audience may be.
What this means for our clients and partners is that the incredible pool of talent and specialised digital marketing that was available under the Switch Digital brand is still around and growing as fast as we can possibly manage it. The creative team that has crafted so many stories for so many years within the Switch umbrella is also here, and also growing steadily to add skills, perspectives and personalities. You just have an easier way of getting in touch with us. Isn’t that what you’d have wanted us to recommend to you?

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My year at Switch

As I celebrate my first year at Switch, I’ve decided to look back at what I’ve learnt throughout this incredible year. This may be a bit of a cheesy post, but it will help you get a clearer idea of what Switch is. Most importantly you will find out who is part of this ever-growing family.

Switch is like a family

This was a relatively new concept for me, and it might have taken me a little longer than normal to get used to the idea that at Switch, people are more than just office colleagues. My background before Switch was a very monotonous office life, where you only ever meet your colleagues at work and during the occasional Christmas office party. Very little to no socialisation took place within the office, and you were given little knowledge about who you were working with. At Switch things are different – you are more than just a number within a company. There is a strong sense of community, of helping one another. The numerous team building events, beers in the boardroom, outdoor adventures, and the long chats over lunch have created a fantastic work environment. Thanks to this, there is a strong support system – we are all here for each other, and we don’t ever allow panic to take over. If one is in need of an extra hand for a project, I can assure you that five will be presented to them, and that’s just, plain, straight awesome.

Switch is an enabler

One year into Switch, and I feel like I have learnt more here than I ever have throughout my three years as an undergraduate student at University. Switch has pushed me into researching, learning and practising what interests and passionates me. Every day I am encouraged to do something I love and to always improve in what I do. Thanks to Switch I breathe and live social media, and I am constantly learning more about it. I write interesting content in-house and for our clients. My obsessive-compulsive planning disorder is actually appreciated, as I try to always plan my work, have content ready months ahead and create colour-coded to-do lists and content calendars.

Switch thinks outside the box

Really and truly, Switch is made up of creative humans that share a place together for approximately forty hours a week. Each and every person in the company has a beautiful brain that is capable of imagining and creating breathtaking works. The best brainstorming sessions are the ones where we gather all the team in one room, and throw anything we can think of on the table, to then go through each and every idea and pick the winning one. Everyone has a say, every idea is a good idea, and we work together to think outside the box. It’s fascinating, inspiring and motivating working with such a creative bunch of people.

Switch is transparent

Switch is constantly working to become the agency of transparency – how? Check out Martina’s Office Bloggers to find out. Yes, there have been bumps along the way. Yes, there will certainly be more. After all, we are humans, we make mistakes, and nothing can ever run as smoothly as we wish. Having said this, Switch is transparent with its employees and clients. It is a very straightforward way of working, where everything is communicated. That’s right, everything. If we think your idea is terrible we won’t sweet talk you out of it, but we will plainly and simply tell you to not go ahead. We are an honest and straight-talking bunch.   

Switch builds relationships

That is certain. If you either work for or with Switch, you are bound to build a long lasting relationship with the company. Clients are treated as close friends – and let’s be honest, everyone goes an extra mile to keep their friends happy. Employees are family, which makes the job that more enjoyable.

Switch loves food

I am not much of a foodie. For this reason, I get judging looks and shocked faces when I refuse a piece of cake or a saucy burger. Here at Switch, food is pretty much a sacred thing that needs to be enjoyed to the fullest. In the past year I have learnt that food is more important than meetings. Therefore no meetings should be booked at lunch time (take note, Matt!). It’s fascinating how pastizzi can bring the whole team together. Just to put you in the picture, we celebrated Bacon Day the other day, and everyone from the office brought something homemade that included bacon. It seemed only fair, that for my year anniversary, I would bake these food lovers a cake. After all, they say the best way to a wo/man’s heart is through food. 😉

There you have it folks, this is what Switch is! If you are curious to know more about us crazy humans, check out some of the work we’ve worked on. Don’t forget to like our Facebook page to keep up to date!

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How did I do it?

In the first few months, I aimed to sort out all the accounting functions of the agency to bring everything up to scratch. This allowed for better drilling down and give the directors a finger on the pulse of how the agency is running at the click of a button.
If we need to know how profitable an account is, if we need to understand which areas of the agency are doing well or if we want to have forecasts for the rest of the year we can usually simply fish the data out in a matter of minutes.
This is incredibly empowering. Once everything was up and running smoothly I wanted to see how we can use these numbers to improve the way Switch works. Both for the agency itself and for its clients.
One of the biggest challenges we’re facing here is that the way agencies have worked traditionally is incongruent with the way we see ourselves going forward.
In my first few months here I learnt that traditionally agencies would rely heavily on commissions for income. Book an advert here, book an advert there and skim a percentage off that when billing the client. This needed a structure that could take silly amounts of cash-flow in and out to allow for enough revenue at the end of the year to scrape by.
In addition, we had a major issue with this model because it is not collaborative, and was therefore against our company values. It did not encourage us, as an agency, to think in the best interests of our clients.
It promoted spend for the sake of it. If we’re being paid our fees on spend, then our best interests are at odds with the best interests of our clients. Why fight for a discount on an ad if it means we’re earning less on it?

What comes next?

So now, armed with a much clearer picture of all that goes on in the business, the next step is allowing our clients to enjoy the benefits of working in a much fairer practice.
We’re moving away from a commission model. We’re working on a way of doing business that helps us build better relationships with clients. We are doing this by showing them that we’re on their side, not trying to make them spend more to earn more.
We bill our clients for the time we spend working on their projects. Whether it’s negotiating rates on their behalf, coming up with creative ideas, planning strategy for their campaigns or making their lives easier in any other way.

How is it affecting us?

Has it had an impact on our turnover? Yep – we’ll probably be billing much less than we did in previous years. However, we’ll also be in a much healthier position than we were in previous years because we’re building a level of trust and transparency that clients aren’t used to seeing.
It also works in our favour because a client is usually much happier to pay for our fees if we’re bringing their overall marketing spend down. It makes it much easier for us to justify spending money on us if we’re giving much better ROI.
Personally, as the person who’s handling cash-flow and who leads the administration team, this makes my life much easier. I am now dealing with less paperwork and less cash-flow that leaves very little margins at the end of the day.
The workload on the rest of the team hasn’t really changed. We’ll still research the best places to book advertising and we’ll negotiate on behalf of a client – but we’ll pass any discounts we get straight on to them.
The only areas in which we charge a rate that’s based on spend is on online advertising – and there’s complete transparency there too. The amount of paperwork that’s involved in dealing with small regular payments has to be covered somehow, but we make this transparent to our clients.
Going forward we’d like to see this financial transparency across the board in the industry. It would make agencies a better place to work at and give clients a much better impression of our industry in the long term.
Till then I’m going to continue working to create an agency that runs as smoothly as it possibly can. Both for our happiness and for the benefit of our clients.

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What does happiness at work really achieve?

Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them, they have more energy and are therefore more efficient at everything they do, have a more optimistic outlook and optimists are way more successful and productive.
Happy people are way more motivated – when you’re happy and relaxed, you’re much more open to learning new things at work and therefore increase your productivity. When you’re happy at work the occasional mistake doesn’t bother you much. You pick yourself up, learn
from it and move on. You also don’t mind admitting to others that you screwed up, but you simply take responsibility, apologize and fix it. This relaxed attitude means that fewer mistakes are made, and that you’re more likely to learn from them.
Happy people make better, more informed decisions and are able to prioritize their work. If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas, and in our line of work creative ideas are the most important ones!
There seems to be a cognitive process that sets up when people are feeling good, and this leads to more flexible, fluent and original thinking.
So what do I do to make everyone at the office simply happier? It’s just simple things, but these little things make a huge change to someone’s perspective when they have a busy schedule. So I make it a priority to help others in the office when I’m a little loose from my own work – it could be anything from a phone call to filing to chasing payments etc. but a tiny bit of help here and there makes everyone feel better. Even a smile while passing in the corridor helps, so my main job is keeping a nice big smile on my face, it helps everyone to see a happy face in the office.
I love baking and baking makes me happy, so I also bring some of my happiness to work – and believe me everyone feels happier when there is a cake in the kitchen!

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Now we’re pushing on to the next level

We’re in the incubation stages of a workshop project that will create a much more hands-on space for the Switch team to spend their thinking and creative time while providing us with a structure that will focus purely on design. There’s a lot in the oven right now and we’re slowly turning a new space we’ve taken over into this hub of creativity and spatial design. I’m not giving too much away right now but please do watch this space. It will turn into something quite interesting, quite soon.

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In the beginning… There’s the Creation Stage

It all starts off from the Trend Setters. These are the guys who ask what’s going to happen tomorrow. They have a forward-looking mentality and always seem to come up with unthinkable new ideas. Some catch on while others are just dismissed as crazy notions brought about by people who are simply too crazy to comprehend. This is the stage during which the trend wave starts to form.

Trend Followers you’re up… The Shaping Stage is next!

Once an unorthodox idea is out there, there will obviously be some who like it as much as the individuals who came up with it. Enter, the Trend Followers – the people who ask what’s happening today! Those who always try remain up-to-date with what’s going on. These individuals are seen as trendy, daring and are, most of the time, leaders in their social groups in some way or another. This is the bridge between the creation of a concept, and its mass following. Hint hint… This is the audience you should be targeting if your campaign is somewhat crazy and innovative.

Well if the experts say so… Let’s take it to the Consolidation Stage

Simple truth is most people love their comfort zones, and will only start following trends once they know the cool guys are doing so. Just like the Late Adopters, who ask “ What happened yesterday?” These individuals have a reluctance to take risks from the very start in most situations and would rather wait until an idea has gained a bit of momentum until they adopt it, so no one thinks they’re weird. Although this mentality has the least influence over a trend’s creation, it is these people who have the power to consolidate and make it popular. So these guys will determine whether a ripple remains a ripple or becomes a wave.
Well, that’s a trend’s life cycle, in a nutshell, brought to you by a humble observer. So now that we have put things in perspective, let’s ask ourselves, where do we fit in? Do we strive to be a leader in any of our interests and activities? To which audience should we communicate our next great idea?
Catch you on the next wave 😀

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Work without working

One thing that happens when you are completely immersed in the online world, is that you never really switch off. You could be scrolling through your personal newsfeed, and come across something you made for a client (and then, obviously, check the stats to see how that post is doing), or an article that sparks an idea for an upcoming project. I have countless of screenshots on my phone and ‘saved’ posts on Facebook that I keep for work purposes. Some may argue that you don’t ever cut off from work and therefore never take a break, but when you feel like your job is more like a hobby you see everything from a different perspective. I’ve often found myself writing blog posts over the weekend, and not because I am a ‘workaholic’, but simply because I enjoy what I do, and sometimes I may get inspired to do something outside office hours.

Work remotely

Oh, the joy of working in pyjamas!
All I really need to get my work done is an internet connection and a laptop – which is great, because it means I can pretty much work from anywhere. On the days where I lack motivation, creativity, or I am simply facing a ‘writer’s block’ I leave my desk and try find inspiration in the boardroom floor, in a coffee shop, or from the comfort of my sofa. I’ve always struggled with sitting down at a desk for too long, as I often felt like I was restricting my creativity. You can now easily find me sitting under a table working on a blog post, or doing analysis from the bedroom floor.

It keeps you going

There are two things that keep me hooked and interested in the job I do, and challenges me to do better: measurable and unpredictable.

Measurable

I’ve always hated numbers, and stopped studying maths at a relatively young age, but one of the things I enjoy doing at work are reports. I love going through the statistics, seeing the numbers, analysing the results in order to understand what we may be doing wrong, what we have to keep doing and what is worth trying to do. It’s something that I find fascinating – to everything we do online, we can see results and analyse them.

Unpredictable

Did you ever expect a post to do extremely well, but you disappointedly find out that it was just a flop? It has to me, many times.
There are different factors that can influence the performance of a post, an advert, or article, such as time, medium used and content. But ultimately, there is one factor that is unpredictable: people.
At the end of the day, what we must always remember is that everything we do has one sole goal: communicate to people. We may want them to like a Facebook page, shop from an outlet, use a service, donate to a charity, or simply visit a website – but we have to always remember that who we are targeting are people. Humans who can interpret a message, an ad, an article in different ways. At Switch we strongly believe in the importance of H2H (human to human) communication – who we target aren’t machines, but people who may interpret our message differently from the way we wish them to, because that is the beauty of humans: everyone has different opinions. The fact that we are constantly facing this unpredictability is what makes this job so interesting and challenging.
Here’s a recent example of unpredictability in people – check out how this employees reacted to the ‘BIC for her’ pens to celebrate Women’s Day:

Read more about this story on Mashable.

Constantly learning

The internet doesn’t sleep.
Every day I learn something new, and I love it. Social media is constantly changing, and you need to quickly adapt to those changes in order to remain on top of the game. Facebook decides to change the insights of the Pages? No problem, Teri and I will start trying and testing in order to learn exactly where to find the stats we need for reports and analysis – n.b.: swearing at the monitor and banging the desk may occur in this process.
This is probably my favourite thing about this job – I am constantly learning. Whether it’s by reading an interesting article that Matt shared with the team, or a deep conversation on how to effectively use Instagram, or by simply listening to presentations during the Friday’s Brainstorming sessions (I’ve learnt a little bit more about photography thanks to Ed’s “Making Pictures, Telling Stories” presentation), there is always something to learn. There is no place for monotony in this job and office.

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Round 1: Easy

Teams could choose a maximum of 12 items from the following:

• 2 balloons
• a handful of cotton wool
• a handful of polystyrene thingamagigs
• 1 cardboard cup
• 30cm of masking tape
• 1 straw
• 1 kebab stick
• 1 sheet of newspaper
• 1 rubber band
• 3 squares of toilet paper
• 1 plastic bag
• 1m of cling film

Two of the teams opted to bundle up their egg in as many layers as possible before placing it between two semi-inflated balloons, providing protection from absolutely every angle. The third team went for a contraption that will maximise bounce on impact while preventing the egg cup from hitting the ground. Check out the super anxious moments of tension, captured only minutes before the great egg drop:

Team 1: Tom, Melissa, Mike and Bre

Team 2: Kristie, Roderick and Craig

Team 3: Andrea, Rik, Matt and Tina

The time had come. There was no going back. It was out the balcony, one contraption at a time, waiting to be inspected by the anxious team members waiting in the street below. You could cut the tension with a knife. Whose egg would survive the fall? Whose dreams would be smashed into a mess of yellow slime?

As it turns out: nobody’s. All 3 eggs returned safe and sound, with not so much as a crack to prove that they’d just fallen 3 storeys. Ah well – on to round 2!

Round 2: Not-so-easy

This time, the teams could only choose 10 items from the following:

• 1 rubber band
• 1 straw
• 1 kebab stick
• 10cm of masking tape
• 2 squares of toilet paper
• 1 sheet of newspaper

Things just got real serious. Ideas included:

None of which were any good, I’m afraid. All three packages hit the ground with an almighty splat that was heard all the way up in the boardroom.
So yeah – no clear winners, no clear losers, but a pretty fun session nonetheless.
Omelette, anyone?

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